A new report by two witnesses sheds more light on an incident in late March where Israeli soldiers reportedly attacked rescue workers in Gaza. Saeed al-Bardawil, a doctor, and Red Crescent volunteer paramedic Munther Abed were detained by the Israeli Defense Forces earlier. Abed said that he was captured while surviving an assault on his ambulance, which killed the other members of his crew, and al-Bardawil was captured while venturing out to go fishing with his son.
The two men alleged that the soldiers attacked another ambulance and fire truck in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, claiming the workers were members of the Hamas organization. The vehicles and crew were sent out to investigate what happened to Abed’s ambulance, which had their headlights and emergency signals on when attacked. “I wasn’t blindfolded — I saw everything clearly,” Dr. al-Bardawil said to the New York Times. “The medics got out to inspect the damaged ambulance. That’s when the soldiers opened heavy fire.”
The United Nations would find a mass grave containing 15 rescue workers – eight from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, one from the United Nations, and from Gaza’s Civil Defense – along with their half-crushed vehicles in a separate grave, leading them to accuse the Israeli Defense Forces of targeting the workers “one by one.” The IDF would deny the claims until a seven-minute video retrieved from the phone of one of the victims showed the moments leading up to soldiers confronting the medics and opening fire. An official would then backtrack in a statement, saying: “What we understand currently is the person who gives the initial account is mistaken. We’re trying to understand why.”
Abed described the attack on his ambulance, and how he was confronted by Israeli soldiers who told him to strip naked and kneel. “You’re a terrorist — why are you here?” he recalled a soldier shouting at him. He then detailed how when he asked about his colleagues, another soldier told him in Arabic that “those terrorists” had been taken to hell by God. He and Dr. al-Bardawil would be released after telling others to evacuate.
