Not only has the Israeli IDF killed 15 Medics but to add insult to injury they lied about the circumstances, to hide their criminal actions, by totally distorting the true facts. A phone video/recording found at the killing site provided the true account.
Fully knowing their criminal acts they buried everything, however, their wrong deeds were unearthed, as the truths eventually must come to the surface.
Evidently the IDF is no better than the infamous SS of the Hitler regime during WW II, they may even be worse by all accounts.
Perhaps the world is trying to makeup for their past sins, when countries, the US included, refused to allow ships, laden with Jewish refugees, to dock sending them back to the country they were trying to escape from. However, two wrongs do not make a right.
"A Ship of Jewish Refugees Was Refused US Landing in 1939. This Was Their Fate"
A phone video/recording found at the killing site provided the true account.
by Naharnet Newsdesk
"The Israeli military backtracked on its account of the
killing of 15 Palestinian medics by its forces last month after phone
video appeared to contradict its claims that their vehicles did not have
emergency signals on when troops opened fire on them in the Gaza Strip.
The military initially said it opened fire because the
vehicles were "advancing suspiciously" on nearby troops without
headlights or emergency signals. An Israeli military official, speaking
late Saturday on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said
that account was "mistaken."
The footage shows the Red Crescent and Civil Defense
teams driving slowly with their emergency vehicles' lights flashing,
logos visible, as they pulled up to help an ambulance that had come
under fire earlier. The teams do not appear to be acting unusually or in
a threatening manner as three medics emerge and head toward the
stricken ambulance.
Their vehicles immediately come under a barrage of
gunfire, which goes on for more than five minutes with brief pauses. The
owner of the phone can be heard praying.
"Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose, mother, to help people," he cries, his voice weak.
Eight Red Crescent personnel, six Civil Defense workers
and a U.N. staffer were killed in the shooting before dawn on March 23
by Israeli troops conducting operations in Tel al-Sultan, a district of
the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Troops then bulldozed over the bodies
along with their mangled vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. U.N.
and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig
out the bodies.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society's vice president,
Marwan Jilani, said the phone with the footage was found in the pocket
of one of its slain staffers. The Palestinian ambassador to the United
Nations distributed the video to the U.N. Security Council. The
Associated Press obtained the video from a U.N. diplomat on condition of
anonymity because it has not been made public.
One paramedic who survived, Munzer Abed, confirmed the
veracity of the video to the AP. Two block-shaped concrete structures
visible in the video are also seen in a U.N. video released Sunday
showing the recovery of the bodies from the site — a sign they are in
the same location.
Asked about the video, the Israeli military said Saturday that the incident was "under thorough examination."
One medic remains missing
The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Younes
Al-Khatib, called for an independent investigation. "We don't trust any
of the army investigations," he told a briefing at the U.N. on Friday.
One medic, Assaad al-Nassasra, is still missing, the Red
Crescent says. Abed said he saw al-Nassasra being led away blindfolded
by Israeli troops. Al-Khatib said the organization has asked the
military where it is holding the staffer.
Al-Khatib said the slain men had been "targeted at close range" and that a forensic autopsy report would be released soon.
Israel has accused Hamas of moving and hiding its
fighters inside ambulances and emergency vehicles, as well as in
hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, arguing that justifies
strikes on them. Medical personnel largely deny the accusations.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 150 emergency
responders from the Red Crescent and Civil Defense, most of them while
on duty, as well as over 1,000 health workers, according to the U.N. The
Israeli military rarely investigates such incidents.
Ambulances under a barrage of Israeli fire
Ambulances started heading to Tel al-Sultan at around
3:50 a.m. on March 23, responding to reports of wounded, Jilani said.
The first ambulance returned safely with at least one casualty, he said.
But, he said, subsequent ambulances came under fire.
His hands trembling, Abed told the AP on Saturday that
as his ambulance entered the area, its siren lights were on. "All of a
sudden, I am telling you, there was direct shooting at us," so intense
that the vehicle ground to a stop, he said.
A 10-year veteran of the Red Crescent, Abed said he was
sitting in the back seat and ducked to the floor. He said he could hear
nothing from his two colleagues in the front seat — the only others in
the vehicle. They appear to have been killed instantly.
Israeli troops, some with night goggles, dragged Abed
out of the ambulance and onto the ground, he said. They made him strip
to his underwear, beat him all over his body with their rifle butts,
then tied his hands behind his back, he said.
They interrogated him, asking him about his paramedic
training and how many people were in the ambulance with him, he said.
One soldier pressed the muzzle of his automatic rifle into his neck.
Another pressed his knife blade into Abed's palm, almost cutting it,
until a third soldier pulled them away and warned Abed, "They're crazy."
Abed said he witnessed them opening fire on the next
vehicles to arrive. Soldiers forced him onto his stomach and pressed a
gun into his back, he said, and amid the shooting in the darkness, so he
could only see two Civil Defense vehicles.
Video shows medic's terror
The phone video shows a rescue convoy of Red Crescent
and Civil Defense vehicles that was sent out after contact was lost with
the stricken ambulance. Taken from the dashboard of one vehicle, it
shows several ambulances and a fire truck moving down a road through a
barren area in the darkness. The emergency lights on their roofs are
flashing the entire way.
They arrive at an ambulance on the side of the road and
stop next to it, their lights still flashing. No Israeli troops are
visible.
"Lord, let them be OK," a man in the car says. Then he
cries out, "They're tossed around on the ground!" — apparently referring
to bodies. Three men in orange Civil Defense clothing can be seen
getting out of the vehicles and walking toward the stopped ambulance.
A shot rings out and one of the men appears to fall. Gunfire erupts.
The man holding the phone appears to scramble out of the
car and onto the ground, but the screen goes black, though the audio
continues. The gunfire goes on for nearly five and a half minutes, with
long, heavy barrages followed by silences punctuated by individual shots
and shouts and screams.
Throughout, the man with the phone says over and over,
"There is no God but God and Muhammad is God's prophet" — the profession
of faith that Muslims say when they fear they are about to die. Near
the end of the six-minute, 40-second video, voices can be heard shouting
in Hebrew. "The Jews are coming," the man said, referring to Israeli
soldiers, before the video cuts off.
The Israeli military official asserted there was "no
mistreatment," and said he didn't know why the vehicles had been buried.
He had no information about the medic who remained missing.
Israel claims they found militants afterward
The Israeli military says that after the shooting,
troops determined they had killed a Hamas figure named Mohammed Amin
Shobaki and eight other militants. However, none of the 15 slain medics
has that name, and no other bodies are known to have been found at the
site.
The military has not said
what happened to Shobaki's body or released the names of the other
alleged militants. The Israeli military official said Israel was
"working to bring evidence" that Hamas operatives were killed.
Jonathan Whittall, interim head in Gaza of the U.N.
humanitarian office OCHA, dismissed allegations that the slain medics
were Hamas militants, saying staff had worked with the same medics
previously in evacuating patients from hospitals and other tasks.
"These are paramedic crews that I personally have met
before," he said. "They were buried in their uniforms with their gloves
on. They were ready to save lives.""
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