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palestine red crescent society
Investigation Details IDF's 'Execution-Style' Massacre of Gaza Medics
"What this investigation reveals is that there was a shoot first policy, and that is unlawful under international law," said one legal expert.
Feb 23, 2026
An investigation published Monday meticulously dissects last year's killing by Israeli soldiers of 15 Palestinian aid workers in southern Gaza and the Israel Defense Force's subsequent efforts to cover up the massacre, which the Palestine Red Crescent Society called "one of the darkest moments" of the US-backed genocide.
IDF soldiers fired nearly a thousand bullets—at least eight of them at point-blank range—during the March 23, 2025 attack on a convoy of Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and Palestinian Civil Defense ambulances and a PCD fire truck in Tel al-Sultan north of Rafah, according to the investigation by Forensic Architecture and Earshot.
"Our investigation confirms that Israeli forces attacked the aid workers while they were traveling in clearly marked humanitarian vehicles, in the absence of any threat or exchange of fire," a summary of the report states. "Spatial and audio analysis conducted in partnership with Earshot reveals the positions from which Israeli soldiers fired on the aid workers—in at least once instance within one to four meters of their victim—over a period of more than two hours."
Eyewitness and survivor testimonies and analysis of various recordings showed that some of the aid workers—who included eight PCRS workers, six PCD employees, and one staffer with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. They are among the hundreds of Palestinian humanitarian aid workers killed by Israeli forces since October 2023, including more than 370 members of UNRWA, according to the agency.
The new report shows how IDF troops ambushed and attacked the convoy, firing on its vehicles. IDF spokesperson Col. Nadav Shoshani claimed that unmarked convoy vehicles "were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals" and that nine of the first responders were “terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad."
However, as is often the case, IDF officials could not support their claim with evidence, and video recorded by PRCS worker Refaat Radwan before he was killed shows clearly marked ambulances traveling with lights on and sirens wailing.
The IDF's lies poured fuel on the fire of international outrage over the massacre. Trey Yingst, chief international correspondent at staunchly pro-Israel Fox News, said that Israel's version of the massacre story was "clearly not true."
Gaza authorities previously reported that some of the victims had apparently survived the initial attack and were handcuffed and executed before being dumped together into a deep hole and buried along with their destroyed vehicles.
Survivors Munther Abed and Assad al-Nassasra testified "that Israeli soldiers opened fire on the rescue convoy as the aid workers exited their vehicles and approached the ambulance on foot," according to the new investigation.
"Asaad recalled crawling toward an ambulance where two colleagues—Muhammad Bahloul and Saleh Muammar—had taken shelter," the publication continues. "Muhammad had been killed, and Saleh was severely wounded. Muhammad al-Hila crawled up behind Asaad, and as the two men embraced, Muhammad was shot and killed."
Autopsies revealed that some of the slain aid workers were shot in the chest and head, with one doctor who examined the bodies calling the "specific and intentional location of shots at close range" indicative of an "execution-style" killing.
Of the bodies found in the mass grave of victims, “one was beheaded,” according to PRCS spokesperson Mahmoud Basal, who said that “the least harmed among them had at least 20 bullets fired at him."
Jonathan Whittall, who headed the UN humanitarian affairs coordination office in Palestine at the time, told Drop Site Monday that “following our discovery of the mass grave, the narrative from Israeli forces shifted multiple times; we were fed several versions of a blatant lie."
The IDF cover-up attempt was underway. The new investigation says that the IDF "deliberately concealed and disturbed evidence, and in the weeks after repeatedly mischaracterized the incident and denied any wrongdoing."
Meanwhile, survivor al-Nassasra was captured by Israeli troops and taken to the Sde Teiman military prison in Israel's Negev Desert, where he was jailed for 37 days and tortured during interrogations. Sde Teiman gained global infamy following reports of torture, rape, and murder of detainees. The IDF is investigating the deaths of at least 36 Palestinians at the lockup, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
Israeli soldiers pulled Abed, the other survivor, from his ambulance, bound his hands, beat him, and detained him on the ground near where the other vehicles had been ambushed. Abed testified that he was stripped, beaten, threatened with death, and interrogated before being released later that same day.
Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told Drop Site that the new investigation "presents a very compelling case, and honestly, a very devastating one.”
"What this investigation reveals is that there was a shoot first policy, and that is unlawful under international law," she continued.
“When you zoom out and look at this in the context of the way the Israeli assault has been carried out over many months and years in Gaza and we see that there is a pattern and practice of attacks on medical personnel—similar to journalists and other groups that are explicitly and uniquely protected as classes of civilians in international humanitarian law—it raises even more questions and deep concern about the lack of accountability, because what we know is that impunity breeds repetition," Gallagher added.
There has been no accountability for those who ordered, carried out, and tried to cover up the paramedic massacre, for the killers of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza—most of them women and children—or for the countless victims of Israeli arbitrary imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, and other thoroughly documented crimes.
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, the Biden and Trump administrations have unwaveringly backed Israel's war, providing tens of billions of dollars in armed aid and diplomatic cover including vetoes of numerous UN Security Council cease-fire resolutions.
Adding insult to injury, the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—whose aid sites have been called "death traps" where more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed—established a distribution center atop the mass grave where the massacred paramedics were buried.
“Now, the US, under the so-called Board of Peace, plans to build a ‘New Rafah’ over this crime scene," Whittall told Drop Site. "Without meaningful accountability, ‘New Rafah’ will be a monument to impunity.”
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Red Crescent Demands Investigation Into Israel Massacre of Gaza Paramedics
"International silence in the face of attacks on humanitarian teams not only equates to a death sentence for Palestinians in Gaza but also poses a direct threat to humanitarian work everywhere."
Apr 09, 2025
The Palestine Red Crescent Society is demanding an independent international investigation into what it called Israel's recent "deliberate killing" of 15 Palestinian first responders, including eight PRCS paramedics in southern Gaza, after video found on a phone buried with one of their bodies showed Israel lied about the incident and autopsies found that the men had been shot with "intent to kill."
"Accountability should not require video evidence. It should not take global outrage for the truth to be acknowledged," PRCS spokesperson Nebal Farsakh said in a video published Wednesday. This, after PRCS issued a statement Monday accusing Israel of a "massacre" and a "full-fledged war crime" that "reflects a dangerous pattern of repeated violation of international humanitarian law."
Citing the Geneva Conventions, PRCS called for "an independent international investigation and for all perpetrators to be held accountable," adding that "international silence in the face of attacks on humanitarian teams not only equates to a death sentence for Palestinians in Gaza but also poses a direct threat to humanitarian work everywhere."
On March 30, PRCS said it had recovered the bodies of 15 Palestinian first responders from a mass grave, including eight Red Crescent emergency medical team members, six Civil Defense personnel, and one United Nations worker. The first responders were killed by Israeli forces on March 23 while traveling "on duty" in five ambulances, a fire truck, and a U.N. vehicle in the al-Hashashin area of southern Gaza. One PRCS medic is still missing after apparently being taken prisoner by Israeli troops.
The Gaza Health Ministry said that "some of these bodies were bound and shot in the chest" before being "buried in a deep hole to prevent their identification." The vehicles in their convoy were destroyed and buried along with the victims in what officials said was an unsuccessful attempt to conceal the massacre.
PRCS spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told Drop Site News that one of the victims was "beheaded," and that "the least harmed among them had at least 20 bullets fired at him."
Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Col. Nadav Shoshani claimed troops opened fire in response to unknown vehicles "advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals."
Shoshani further contended that nine of the first responders were "terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad"—an accusation often made by Israeli officials against many of the thousands of medical professionals, humanitarian workers, and journalists killed or wounded by the IDF.
However, video found on the cellphone of 23-year-old Rifaat Radwan, one of the slain medics, revealed that the ambulances and fire truck were not only clearly marked but also had their emergency lights flashing when they were attacked.
Israeli troops can be heard in the video firing on the convoy and getting closer. Realizing he was about to die, Radwan said: "Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose—to help people."
Speaking to Middle East Eye, Radwan's mother called the killing of her son and the other first responders "something horrific, beyond comprehension" and "a crime against humanity."
Radwan's video forced the IDF to admit that its version of events was "mistaken." British Tunisian journalist Soumaya Ghannoushi wrote that the slain medic's "voice from beyond the grave destroyed Israel's lie."
There was also the testimony of survivor Munther Abed, a 27-year-old longtime PRCS volunteer, who told Drop Site News that the first responders "were directly and deliberately shot at" by IDF troops.
"The car is clearly marked with 'Palestinian Red Crescent Society 101,'" he said. "The car's number was clear and the crews' uniform was clear, so why were we directly shot at?"
🚨Report: The sole survivor of the paramedics Israeli massacre in Rafah, Munther Abed, recounts the moments when his colleagues were executed before his eyes and how he survived the Israeli attack that targeted Red Crescent and Civil Defense ambulances on March 23, killing 15… pic.twitter.com/3cvTDPOGJw
— Gaza Notifications (@gazanotice) April 3, 2025
Abed says he was kidnapped and tortured by IDF soldiers, and that he saw Assad al-Nassara, the missing medic, in Israeli custody.
"This is not the first violation and there have been many violations before," Abed said. "Where is our protection according to international humanitarian law?"
At least 30 PRCS workers and volunteers have been killed by Israeli forces since Israel launched the war in response to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. Such killings rarely make international headlines but sometimes do, like when two medics were fatally shot while trying to rescue Hind Rajab, a mortally wounded 6-year-old girl trapped in a car surrounded by dead relatives following an IDF attack in January 2024.
As Ghannoushi noted: "Palestinian medics say their uniforms don't protect them; they mark them for death. Symbols once sacred—the Red Crescent vest, the white coat, surgical scrubs—are now treated as targets."
"In Gaza, medicine is rebellion, and compassion is treason," she added. "To heal is to defy extermination."
The first responders' massacre has received widespread international media coverage, and even the staunchly pro-Zionist U.S. corporate media pressed Israeli officials for answers. Fox News chief foreign affairs correspondent Trey Yingst appeared skeptical of Israel's assertion that the slain first responders were terrorists: "Asked multiple times for evidence to support that claim, none was provided," he said during one report.
Jonathan Whittall, who heads the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Palestine, angrily rejected Israel's claim, saying the first responders were executed "one by one."
"We're digging them out with uniforms, with their gloves on," he said last week. "They were here to save lives. Instead, they ended up in a mass grave."
Whittall called the killings "very emblematic of the point we've reached in Gaza."
"What is happening here is defying—it defies decency, it defies humanity, it defies the law," he added. "It is a war without limits."
The U.S.-backed war—for which Israel is facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice—continued for the 551st day on Wednesday, with scores of Palestinians reportedly killed by IDF airstrikes and shelling across Gaza. A strike on a multistory residential building in the Shejaiyya neighborhood east of Gaza City killed at least 29 people including eight children, according to local medical officials. More than 60 others were wounded in the strike and two dozen other people are missing beneath the rubble.
The IDF—which after the October 7 attack explicitly allowed an unlimited number of civilians to be killed in strikes targeting even one Hamas member, no matter how lowly his rank—claimed it bombed the homes in a bid to eliminate a "senior Hamas terrorist."
The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that Israeli forces have killed 1,482 Palestinians in Gaza since unilaterally breaking a January cease-fire on March 18. This figure includes more than 320 children, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. The ministry said that at least 50,846 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 115,700 have been wounded, since October 2023. Upward of 14,000 others are missing and feared dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed-out buildings.
Nearly all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced—often multiple times—and have suffered widespread and sometimes deadly
starvation and illness fueled by Israel's "complete siege" of the coastal enclave.
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'They Must Be Prosecuted': Video Found on Phone of Murdered Gaza Medic Refutes IDF Claims
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left."
Apr 05, 2025
A video presented to officials at the United Nations on Friday and first made public Saturday by the New York Times provides more evidence that the recent massacre of Palestinian medics in Gaza did not happen the way Israeli government claimed—the latest in a long line of deception when it comes to violence against civilians that have led to repeated accusations of war crimes.
The video, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), was found on the phone of a paramedic found in a mass grave with a bullet in his head after being killed, along with seven other medics, by Israeli forces on March 23. The eight medics, buried in the shallow grave with the bodies riddled with bullets, were: Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz El-Din Shaat, Saleh Muammar, Refaat Radwan, Muhammad Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Libda, Muhammad Al-Hila, and Raed Al-Sharif. The video reportedly belonged to Radwan. A ninth medic, identified as Asaad Al-Nasasra, who was at the scene of the massacre, which took place near the southern city of Rafah, is still missing.
The PRCS said it presented the video—which refutes the explanation of the killings offered by Israeli officials—to members of the UN Security Council on Friday.
"They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives," Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN's humanitarian affairs office in Palestine, said last week after the bodies were discovered. Some of the victims, according to Gaza officials, were found with handcuffs still on them and appeared to have been shot in the head, execution-style.
The Israeli military initially said its soldiers "did not randomly attack" any ambulances, but rather claimed they fired on "terrorists" who approached them in "suspicious vehicles." Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an IDF spokesperson, said the vehicles that the soldiers opened fire on were driving with their lights off and did not have clearance to be in the area. The video evidence directly contradicts the IDF's version of events.
As the Times reports:
The Times obtained the video from a senior diplomat at the United Nations who asked not to be identified to be able to share sensitive information.
The Times verified the location and timing of the video, which was taken in the southern city of Rafah early on March 23. Filmed from what appears to be the front interior of a moving vehicle, it shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, clearly marked, with headlights and flashing lights turned on, driving south on a road to the north of Rafah in the early morning. The first rays of sun can be seen, and birds are chirping.
In an interview with Drop Site News published Friday, the only known paramedic to survive the attack, Munther Abed, explained that he and his colleagues "were directly and deliberately shot at" by the IDF. "The car is clearly marked with 'Palestinian Red Crescent Society 101.' The car's number was clear and the crews' uniform was clear, so why were we directly shot at? That is the question."
The video's release sparked fresh outrage and demands for accountability on Saturday.
"The IDF denied access to the site for days; they sent in diggers to cover up the massacre and intentionally lied about it," said podcast producer Hamza M. Syed in reaction to the new revelations. "The entire leadership of the Israeli army is implicated in this unconscionable war crime. And they must be prosecuted."
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left," said journalist Ryan Grim of DropSite News.
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