Footage has emerged of the moment 15 aid workers were killed in Gaza last month – showing their ambulances and fire insignia were clearly visible when Israeli troops are believed to have opened fire on them.
The bodies of 15 aid workers – eight medics working for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), six civil defence members, and one United Nations employee – were found in a “mass grave” after the incident, according to the head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Jonathan Whittall.
The PRCS described the “targeting of aid workers” by Israeli troops as a “war crime”.
The Israeli military said in a statement before the emergence of the video that an inquiry found the troops opened fire on vehicles without headlights or emergency signals.
But video footage obtained by The New York Times – and verified by Sky News – shows ambulances and a fire vehicle clearly marked with flashing red lights.
Sky News has used aftermath video and satellite imagery to verify the location and timing of the footage.
It was filmed on 23 March north of Rafah. It shows a convoy of marked ambulances and a fire-fighting vehicle travelling south along a road towards central Rafah.
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All of the vehicles visible in the convoy have their flashing lights on.
The video appears to be taken by one of the aid workers in the early morning. A satellite image seen by Sky News taken at 9.48am local time on the same day shows a group of vehicles bunched together off the road.
The PRCS first posted about losing contact with its crews just before 7am local time.
Satellite imagery shows the area on 26 March, three days later. Tyre tracks are visible, as are groundworks likely created by military vehicles.
In the footage filmed from a moving vehicle, through the windscreen a convoy of vehicles is visible – including ambulances and a fire vehicle with flashing emergency signal lights.
When the convoy stops, a vehicle is seen having veered off the road to the left-hand side.
The vehicle where the video is being filmed from stops and the aid workers get out.
Intense gunfire then breaks out and continues for around five minutes.
The paramedic filming the video is heard saying in Arabic that there are Israelis present – and reciting a declaration of faith used before someone dies.
Hebrew voices are also heard in the background but it is not clear what they are saying.
Sky Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall said the IDF originally claimed the ambulances were travelling “without their lights on” or “any sign of them being emergency vehicles”.
“But the video very clearly shows that those vehicles had their emergency lights flashing,” he said.
Sky News has approached the Israeli military for comment on the footage.
‘Ambulances were clearly marked’
Speaking at the United Nations on Friday, PRCS president Dr Younis Al Khatib said the organisation has “asked for an independent investigation”.
He added: “Something I can release, I heard the voice of one of those kids. I heard the voice of one of those team members who was killed and his phone was found with his body and he recorded the whole event.
“His last words before being shot, ‘Forgive me, mom. I just wanted to help people. I wanted to save lives’.”
Dylan Winder, permanent observer of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) said it was “outraged at the deaths of eight medics from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society killed on duty in Gaza“.
“As our Secretary General, Jagan Chapagain, said, these dedicated ambulance workers were responding to wounded people,” he said.
“They were humanitarians. They wore emblems that should have been protected. Their ambulances were clearly marked, and they should have returned to their families. They did not.
“Even in the most complex conflict zones, there are rules. These rules of international humanitarian law could not be clearer: civilians must be protected, humanitarians must be protected, health services must be protected.”
In a statement issued before the footage of the incident emerged, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it condemned “the repeated use of civilian infrastructure by the terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip, including the use of medical facilities and ambulances for terrorist purposes”.
Several members of the militant groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were killed in the incident, it added.
Israel’s military did not comment directly on the deaths of the Red Crescent workers but later told the Reuters news agency it had allowed the bodies to be recovered from the area, which it described as an active combat zone.
The bodies were found in sand in the south of the Gaza Strip in what Mr Whittall, called a “mass grave”, marked with the emergency light from a crushed ambulance.
He posted pictures and video of Red Crescent teams digging in the sand for the bodies and workers laying them out on the ground, covered in plastic sheets.
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Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), said on X on Monday that the bodies had been “discarded in shallow graves” in what he called “a profound violation of human dignity”.
More than 400 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Mr Lazzarini said.
According to the UN, at least 1,060 healthcare workers have been killed in the 18 months since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel on 7 October 2023.
The UN is reducing its international staff in Gaza by a third because of safety concerns.
Palestinian health authorities say more than 50,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October assault, when Hamas militants crossed the border into southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, and taking some 250 hostage.
Gaza’s health ministry records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
