Footage of paramedics killed in cold blood in Gaza refutes Israeli claims: Palestinian Foreign Ministry

• ‘This is a fully documented crime, part of the ongoing genocide and forced displacement campaign against our people,’ ministry says

ISTANBUL

Palestine said on Saturday that video footage showing the execution of 15 paramedics and aid workers in Rafah, southern Gaza, refutes Israeli forces’ claims that ambulances were not randomly targeted.

In an official statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said a video posted by an American newspaper documenting the deliberate execution of 15 emergency and relief workers in March disproves Israeli claims that it did not randomly attack ambulances or recognize them due to a lack of lights or emergency signals.

“This is a fully documented crime, part of the ongoing genocide and forced displacement campaign against our people,” the ministry said, adding: “It reveals the brutality committed daily by the occupation (Israeli) forces against Palestinian civilians, humanitarian and UN personnel, medical workers, and journalists—all with the intent to intimidate them and prevent any aid from reaching our people in Gaza.”

It added: “The occupation forces aim to destroy all forms and foundations of life in the Gaza Strip, turning it into uninhabitable land, as a step toward imposing forced displacement on Palestinian civilians.”

Meanwhile, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas said in a separate statement that the footage “reveals a horrific field execution crime, deliberately carried out by the Zionist occupation army by targeting ambulance and civil defense crews while they were performing their humanitarian duty of rescuing the wounded.

“This shocking video is not just a tragic scene, but irrefutable evidence of the occupation’s brutality, its blatant violation of international laws and conventions, and its deliberate attempt to cover up the crime by burying the victims in mass graves and erasing the truth.”

The movement called on the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and all people of conscience to “urgently act to document this crime and others, refer them to international courts, and work to hold the leaders of the occupation (Israel) accountable as war criminals.”

The statement came as a response to a viral video released on Saturday, which was found on the phone of a Palestinian paramedic whose body was discovered in a mass grave alongside 14 colleagues after they were executed by the Israeli army while performing their humanitarian duties.

On March 31, the Israeli army claimed that the attack on the ambulances was not random, alleging that nine members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups were killed in the attack.

However, on March 30, the Palestine Red Crescent Society announced the discovery of 15 bodies following the Israeli attack.

According to Gaza’s Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal, several members of the civil defense team were found with their hands and feet bound and visible bullet wounds on their heads and torsos, suggesting they were executed at close range after being identified for their humanitarian work. One of the civil defense personnel had been decapitated, and the remaining bodies were found in pieces.

More than 50,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza in Israel’s military onslaught since October 2023.

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