GAZA CITY: A video recovered from the cell phone of an aid worker killed in Gaza, alongside 14 other rescuers, shows their final moments, according to the Palestine Red Crescent, with clearly marked ambulances and emergency lights flashing as heavy gunfire erupts.

The 15 aid workers were killed on March 23 in an attack by Israeli forces, according to the United Nations and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

The Israeli military has said its soldiers “did not randomly attack” any ambulances, insisting they fired on “suspicious vehicles”.

But the video released by PRCS on Saturday appears to contradict the Israeli military’s claims, showing ambulances travelling with their headlights on and emergency lights flashing.

The video, six minutes and 42 seconds long and apparently filmed from inside a moving vehicle, captures a red truck and ambulances driving through the night amid constant automatic gunfire.

The vehicles stop beside another on the roadside, and two uniformed men exit. Moments later, intense gunfire erupts.

In the video, the voices of two medics are heard — one saying “the vehicle, the vehicle”, and another responding: “It seems to be an accident.”

Seconds later a volley of gunfire breaks out and the screen goes black.

‘Occupation’s brutality

The PRCS said it had found the video on the phone of Rifat Radwan, one of the deceased aid workers.

“This video unequivocally refutes the occupation’s claims that Israeli forces did not randomly target ambulances, and that some vehicles had approached suspiciously without lights or emergency markings,” PRCS said in a statement.

“The footage exposes the truth and dismantles this false narrative.”

Those killed included eight PRCS staff, six members of Gaza’s civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA.

Their bodies were found buried near Rafah in what the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) described as a mass grave.

Fear and prayers

In the video, a medic recording the scene can be heard reciting the Kalma.

“There is no god but God, Mohammed (Peace be upon him) is his messenger,” he says repeatedly, his voice trembling with fear as intense gunfire continues in the background.

He is also heard saying: “Forgive me mother because I chose this way, the way of helping people.”

He then says: “Accept my martyrdom, God, and forgive me.”

Just before the footage ends, he is heard saying “The Jews are coming, the Jews are coming”, referring to Israeli soldiers.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian paramedic who was present at the March 23 incident said he saw Israeli troops firing at emergency vehicles that he later saw stained with blood.

Munther Abed, a volunteer for the PRCS, said he was responding to a call with two colleagues near Rafah, in the south of Gaza Strip, 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 PRCS and the United Nations that the emergency workers from the Red Cross, Red Crescent, UN and Palestinian civil emergency service were targeted by Israeli troops.

The Palestinian Red Crescent described Abed as “the lone survivor” of the incident, with the fate of the missing paramedic still unclear.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2025