Cell phone footage has emerged that seems to contradict Israel’s account of why troopers opened fireplace on a convoy of ambulances and a fireplace truck on March 23, killing 15 rescue workers.
The video, revealed by the Palestine Crimson Crescent Society (PRCS), reveals the automobiles shifting in darkness with headlights and emergency flashing lights switched on – earlier than coming beneath fireplace. The PRCS stated the video was obtained from the cellphone of a paramedic who was killed.
The Israel Protection Forces (IDF) initially denied the automobiles had their headlights or emergency indicators on.
However in response to the brand new video, the IDF informed the BBC: “All claims, together with the documentation circulating in regards to the incident, can be completely and deeply examined to grasp the sequence of occasions and the dealing with of the scenario”.
A surviving paramedic beforehand told the BBC that the ambulances had been clearly marked and had their inside and exterior lights on.
The most recent video, which the PRCS stated had been proven to the UN Safety Council, reveals the marked automobiles drawing to a halt on the sting of the street, lights nonetheless flashing, and at the least two emergency staff stepping out carrying reflective clothes.
The windscreen of the automobile being filmed from is cracked and capturing can then be heard lasting for a number of minutes because the individual filming says prayers. He’s understood to be one of many useless paramedics.
The footage was discovered on his cellphone after his physique was recovered from a shallow grave one week after the incident. The our bodies of the eight paramedics, six Gaza Civil Defence staff and one UN worker had been discovered buried in sand, together with their wrecked automobiles. It took worldwide organisations days to barter protected entry to the location.
Israel claimed numerous Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants had been killed within the incident, however it has not supplied any proof or additional defined the menace to its troops.
Israel’s Overseas Minister Gideon Saar earlier this week echoed the military account, saying “the IDF didn’t randomly assault an ambulance”.
The IDF promised to research the circumstances after a surviving paramedic questioned its account.
In an interview with the BBC, paramedic Munther Abed said: “Throughout day and at evening, it is the identical factor. Exterior and inside lights are on. All the pieces tells you it is an ambulance automobile that belongs to the Palestinian Crimson Crescent. All lights had been on till the automobile got here beneath direct fireplace.”
He additionally denied he or his staff had any militant connections.
“All crews are civilian. We do not belong to any militant group. Our fundamental responsibility is to supply ambulance companies and save folks’s lives. No extra, no much less,” he stated.
Talking on the United Nations yesterday the President of the PRCS, Dr Younis Al-Khatib, referred to the video recording, saying: “I heard the voice of a kind of staff members who was killed. His final phrases earlier than being shot…’forgive me mum, I simply needed to assist folks. I needed to avoid wasting lives’. It is heartbreaking”.
He referred to as for “accountability” and “an “impartial and thorough investigation” of what he referred to as an “atrocious crime”.
One paramedic remains to be unaccounted for following the 23 March incident.
