The Palestine Red Crescent Society has released a video showing the moments leading up to the Israeli attack that killed at least 15 of its paramedics in the Gaza Strip last month. The group terms the killings “a full-fledged war crime” and is calling on the international community to demand accountability.
According to the Red Crescent, Israeli forces targeted the rescue workers in a series of deliberate attacks over a two-hour period before dawn on March 23. The men were wearing their uniforms and riding in clearly marked emergency vehicles with flashing lights when they were killed.
The Israeli military has admitted to killing the 15 men, stating that six of those killed “were identified as Hamas terrorists,” but it has cited no evidence to support this claim. However, the Red Crescent and the United Nations have said that the dead were unarmed aid workers who posed no threat.
A video captured by a paramedic on his cellphone shows the moments leading up to the attack. In the footage, rescue workers are heard praying and searching for their missing colleagues as they try to locate an ambulance that had disappeared. The paramedics can be seen driving down dark roads with only their headlights lit, and one of them is heard saying “These moments need to be documented” before the shooting begins.
The March 23 attack followed an airstrike on a home in southern Gaza, and Israeli troops fired at a convoy of emergency vehicles that arrived to rescue the first ambulance. The Red Crescent has said that Israeli forces had set up an ambush for the convoy and shot at it multiple times.
Preliminary autopsies showed multiple gunshot wounds to the upper parts of the men’s bodies, and their bodies were found piled together in a black mesh bag and buried “in a brutal and degrading manner that violates human dignity.”
The Red Crescent is calling on the United Nations Security Council and other international organizations to demand accountability and launch an independent investigation into the killings.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/world/middleeast/gaza-paramedics-video.html