GAZA: A video recovered from the cellphone of an aid worker killed in Gaza alongside 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 aid worker was among 15 humanitarian personnel who 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 “terrorists” approaching them in “suspicious vehicles.”
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said that troops opened fire on vehicles that had no prior clearance from Israeli authorities and had their lights off.
But the video released by PRCS on Saturday appears to contradict the Israeli military’s claims, showing ambulances traveling with their headlights and emergency lights clearly flashing.
The video, apparently filmed from inside a moving vehicle, captures a red firetruck and ambulances driving through the night.
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.
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 the Gaza civil defense 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.

ATTACK ON AID WORKERS
OCHA has said that the first team was targeted by Israeli forces at dawn on that day. In the hours that followed, additional rescue and aid teams searching for their colleagues were also struck in a series of successive attacks.
According to the PRCS, the convoy had been dispatched in response to emergency calls from civilians trapped under bombardment in Rafah.
In the video, a medic recording the scene can be heard reciting the Islamic declaration of faith, the shahada, which Muslims traditionally say in the face of death.
“There is no God but God, Mohammed 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.
The deaths of the aid workers has sparked international condemnation.
Jonathan Whittall, the head of OCHA in the Palestinian territories, said the bodies of the humanitarian workers were “in their uniforms, still wearing gloves” when they were found.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, condemned the attack, raising concerns over possible “war crimes” by the Israeli military.
“I am appalled by the recent killings of 15 medical personnel and humanitarian aid workers, which raise further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military,” Volker Turk told the UN Security Council on Thursday.
Turk called for an “independent, prompt and thorough investigation” into the attack.
An Israeli military official said the bodies had been covered “in sand and cloth” to avoid damage until coordination with international organizations could be arranged for their retrieval.
The military said it was investigating the attack.

CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Saturday accused Israel of trying to destabilize Syria and Lebanon through military provocations, in “flagrant disregard for international legal norms.”

In a statement, Aboul Gheit said that global inaction had further emboldened Israel.

“(T)he wars waged by Israel on the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Syria have entered a new phase of complete recklessness, deliberately violating signed agreements, invading countries and killing more civilians,” said the statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

He said that Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon was an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year. 

Aboul Gheit said that Israel’s actions were driven by narrow domestic agendas at the expense of civilian lives and regional peace.

“It seems that the Israeli war machine does not want to stop as long as the occupation leaders insist on facing their internal crises by exporting them abroad, and this situation has become clear to everyone,” he said.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health’s count last week, more than 50,000 people have been killed and more than 113,200 wounded in Israeli attacks on Palestinian territories in retaliation against the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel.

In Lebanon, war monitors have said that at least 3,961 people were killed and 16,520 wounded in Israel’s war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement from Oct. 8, 2023 to Nov. 26, 2024.

Syria’s new government accused Israel on April 3 of mounting a deadly destabilization campaign after a wave of strikes on military targets, including an airport, and a ground incursion that killed 13 people in the southern province of Daraa.