As Israeli forces advanced in the Gaza city of Rafa last Sunday before dawn, ambulance crews set out to evacuate civilians injured by Israeli artillery fire. However, the ambulance and its crew were attacked along the way.
Several more ambulances and fire trucks headed to the scene to rescue them for more hours, as did the UN vehicles, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Association. A total of 17 people were dispatched.
Then they all went silent.
It took five days for the United Nations and Red Crescent to negotiate with Israeli forces to securely pass to search for missing people. After receiving the clearance, UN officials said the recovery team found 15 deaths, with most of their bodies dumped in the graves of the masses.
On Sunday, the United Nations said Israel had killed them – a rare accusation by the organization, which is generally cautious about assigning clear liability.
“They were killed by Israeli forces while trying to save their lives,” said Tom Fletcher, the UN's humanitarian director, in X. “We demand answers and justice.”
Red Crescent and the United Nations, the international committee of the Red Cross, said all those killed were humanitarian workers who should not be under attack. The Red Crescent Moon called the murder a war crime and called it accountable.
Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadab Shoshani said on Monday X that nine of the people killed were Palestinian extremists. He said that Israeli forces “didn't randomly attack” the ambulances, but that some vehicles were “going suspiciously” and “going suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals at Israeli forces.
UN officials said the vehicle was clearly marked as a rescue vehicle.
Colonel Shoshani said that Israeli forces killed Hamas operatives Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki during the attack.
He said the Israeli forces had killed eight other operatives from another militant group Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad. He accused the extremists of “again, exploiting medical facilities and equipment for their activities.”
He had not directly said whether the militants were in emergency vehicles.
The Israeli military bulldozed and crushed ambulances, fire trucks and UN vehicles, UN officials said.
Red Crescent said one Medic is still missing. According to the aid group, the only survivor of Red Crescent workers was detained, beaten and released by Israeli forces on the same day. He told colleagues that Israeli forces killed both the other crew members of his ambulance, Red Crescent and UN officials said.
Of the 17 people involved, 10 were red crescents, six were emergency responders in Gaza's civil defense, and one was a UN worker, UN officials said.
Jonathan Whittal, a UN humanitarian official in Gaza, joined the retrieval team and posted a photo on X. The large navy blue “n” on the UN vehicle was still visible above it.
“They were attacked one by one, they were struck, their bodies gathered together and buried in this mass grave,” he said in a video message shared by the United Nations.
A few days after they went missing, a UN team searching for them witnessed a new scene of chaos and violence in Rafa, including “hundreds of civilians fleeing under gunfire.”
He posted a video showing that he said he came next. The two men walked towards the road, apparently regaining the female body. One of them was also shot. Wittal did not say who fired the shot.
On Thursday, the UN fleet found a crumpled vehicle, UN officials said. The hours of excavation produced one body by civil defense workers buried under his fire truck, Witthal said. They returned to the remaining bodies on Sunday.
Whittall narrated the body search in a video message.
“We're digging them out in their uniforms and wearing their gloves,” he said. “They were here to save lives. Instead, they became the graves of the masses.”
He said the grave was marked with emergency lights from one of the destroyed ambulances.
Israeli military spokesman Colonel Shoshani said unlike other vehicles along the same route before that day, the vehicle had not been permitted to be there by Israeli forces.
Nevarfalsaf, a spokeswoman for the Palestinian Red Crescent Association, said when the ambulance departed around 3:30am on March 23, the Israeli forces had not yet closed the area as a “red zone” that must survive movement with Israel.
Israel did not immediately address accusations of burying in large numbers of graves or crushing vehicles.
In all, Red Crescent said 27 people had been killed since the war began.
The fight in Gaza was suspended from January until March 18th, when Israel broke it.
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Aaron Boxaman I contributed a report from Jerusalem.
