Red Crescent Demands Investigation Into Israel Massacre of Gaza Paramedics

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?"

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.