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palestine red crescent society
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 toldDrop 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 toldDrop 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 Timesreports:
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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Israel Bombs More Gaza Schools, Killing Dozens, Including Many Women and Children
"While your kids are getting ready for school, kids in Gaza were once against just massacred in one," said one observer.
Apr 03, 2025
Israeli airstrikes targeted at least three more school shelters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing dozens of Palestinians and wounding scores of others on a day when local officials said that more than 100 people were slain by occupation forces.
Gaza's Government Media Office said that at least 29 people—including 14 children and five women—were killed and over 100 others were wounded when at least four missiles struck the Dar al-Arqam school complex in the Tuffah neighborhood of eastern Gaza City, where hundreds of Palestinians were sheltering after being forcibly displaced from other parts of the embattled coastal enclave by Israel's 535-day assault.
Al Jazeera reported that "when terrified men, women, and children fled from one school building to another, the bombs followed them," and "when bystanders rushed to help, they too became victims."
A first responder from the Palestine Red Crescent Society—which is reeling from this week's discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of eight of its members, some of whom had allegedly been bound and executed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops—toldAl Jazeera that "we were absolutely shocked by the scale of this massacre," whose victims were "mostly women and children."
Warning: Video contains graphic images of death.
Horrifying scenes following the Dar Al-Arqam School Massacre!#Gaza pic.twitter.com/xOvuq3Zztx
— Dr. Zain Al-Abbadi (@ZainAbbadi11) April 3, 2025
An official from Gaza's Civil Defense, five of whose members were also found in the mass grave on Sunday, said: "What's going on here is a wake-up call to the entire world. This war and these massacres against women and children must stop immediately. The children are being killed in cold blood here in Gaza. Our teams cannot perform their duties properly.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Zaher al-Wahidi said that the death toll was likely to rise, as some survivors were critically injured.
Dozens of victims were reportedly trapped beneath rubble of Thursday's airstrikes, but they could not be rescued due to a lack of equipment.
The IDF claimed that "key Hamas terrorists" were targeted in a strike on what it called a "command center." Israeli officials routinely claim—often with little or no evidence—that Palestinian civilians it kills are members of Hamas or other militant resistance groups.
Israel also bombed the nearby al-Sabah school, killing four people, as well as the Fahd School in Gaza City, with three reported fatalities.
Some of the deadliest bombings in the war have been carried out against refugees sheltering in schools, many of them run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—at least 280 of whose staff members have been killed by Israeli forces during the war.
The United Nations Children's Fund has called Gaza "the world's most dangerous place to be a child." Last year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres for the first time added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts. More than 17,500 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Thursday's school bombings sparked worldwide outrage and calls to hold Israel accountable.
"While your kids are getting ready for school, kids in Gaza were once against just massacred in one," Australian journalist, activist, and progressive politician Sophie McNeill wrote on social media. "We must sanction Israel now!"
There were other IDF massacres on Thursday, with local officials reporting that more than 100 people were killed in Israeli attacks since dawn. Al-Wahidi said more than 30 people were killed in strikes on homes in Gaza City's Shejaya neighborhood, citing records at al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza.
Al Jazeera reported that al-Ahli's emergency room "is overwhelmed with casualties and, as is so often the case over the past 18 months, the victims are Gaza's youngest."
Thursday's intensified airstrikes came as Israeli forces pushed into the ruins of the southern city of Rafah. Local and international media reported that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families fled from the area, which Israel said it will seize as part of a new "security zone."
Human rights defenders around the world condemned U.S.-backed killing and mass displacement, with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—whose bid to block some sAmerican arms sales to Israel was rejected by the Senate on Thursday—saying: "There is a name and a term for forcibly expelling people from where they live. It is called ethnic cleansing. It is illegal. It is a war crime."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued arrest warrants for the pair over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel is also facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
According to Gaza officials, Israeli forces have killed or wounded at least 175,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including upward of 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Almost everyone in Gaza has been forcibly displaced at least once, and the "complete siege" imposed by Israel has fueled widespread and sometimes deadly starvation and disease.
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