A Palestinian paramedic who was present at an incident in which 15 of his colleagues were killed in southern Gaza last month said he witnessed Israeli troops firing at emergency vehicles that he later saw stained with blood.
After several days of uncertainty about the whereabouts of the paramedics, Red Crescent and United Nations officials found the bodies of the 15 emergency and aid workers buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza, accusing Israeli forces of killing them. Another worker is still missing.
Munther Abed, a volunteer for the Palestine Red Crescent Society, said he was responding to a call with two colleagues near Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on March 23 when he was detained by Israeli soldiers shortly before they opened fire on other emergency vehicles.
He said he had not been able to see exactly what happened when the soldiers opened fire. But his account corresponds with assertions by officials from the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the UN that the emergency workers from the Red Cross, Red Crescent, UN and Palestinian Civil Emergency service were targeted by Israeli troops.
The Israeli military has opened an investigation into the incident, which by its account occurred when unmarked vehicles approached an Israeli position in the dark without lights or special markings and without previous co-ordination — factors it said had made the vehicles’ advance appear suspicious.
The military said the soldiers who opened fire had killed a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who were travelling in vehicles marked with Palestine Red Crescent Society signs.
The Red Crescent describes Abed as “the lone survivor” of the incident, with the fate of the missing paramedic still unclear.
Abed said he and colleagues had received a call to go out to help wounded people at around dawn following an airstrike in the Al-Hashasheen area in Rafah, close to the border with Egypt.
“We moved right away, it was me and two other colleagues. As soon as we arrived there, we came under fire and they detained us,” he told Reuters by phone from his house in Khan Younis, referring to shooting by Israeli soldiers.
After Abed was detained, he said he lost sight of his two colleagues.
As he was standing near the soldiers, he said he saw other emergency vehicles approaching the Israeli soldiers’ position.
“I could see the vehicle of the Civil Emergency. The soldiers began shooting at the vehicles, they fired heavily,” he said. “It was dark and I couldn’t see what happened to the people there, but they [the soldiers] fired heavily. They asked me to duck down and they were firing heavily. I felt as if the bullets were hitting me personally.”
On Saturday, the Red Crescent issued a video obtained from the cellphone of a paramedic found buried in the mass grave.
Filmed from inside a moving vehicle, it appears to show a clearly marked convoy of ambulances and a fire truck driving at dawn with their red lights flashing. After they stop by a vehicle that had veered off the road, two rescue workers and another man can be seen before a volley of gunshots is heard.
Reuters was able to verify the location of the video near the Tal al-Sultan area, west of Rafah city in Rafah governate.
The Israeli military said in response to a request for comment about the video that the event on March 23 was under thorough examination.
“All claims, including the documentation circulating about the incident, will be thoroughly and deeply examined to understand the sequence of events and the handling of the situation,” it said.
‘Blood on the vehicles’
It was only after daybreak that Abed, who remained held at the location where he was initially detained, was able to get a clearer picture of what had happened.
“With the first light of the day, things become clearer, I saw the vehicles of the Civil Emergency and the Red Crescent, the doors of all the vehicles were open and there was blood on the vehicles,” he said.
Abed said he saw a bulldozer dig four holes in the sandy ground before crushing the wrecked vehicles and burying them.
“At that time I had no clue about the fate of my colleagues,” he said.
Abed said he was held in detention by Israeli forces for about 15 hours, during which time he was interrogated and beaten. He said he saw the aid worker who is still missing, detained by Israeli soldiers.
“They asked me where I had been on Oct. 7, they were saying Palestinians are terrorists, and that we are all terrorists. They asked many personal questions, too, about me and my family,” he said. “I felt I was about to die.”
Eventually he said the soldiers made some checks on him before they decided to release him.
Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent Society, confirmed that Abed was working for the organization as a volunteer and was in Rafah that day with the mission.
“He is the lone survivor, the two colleagues who were with him were killed. There is another colleague who is still missing,” Farsakh told Reuters.
“He had no clue at that moment whether his colleagues were martyred or were wounded and saved.”
