The Israeli army has executed 15 Palestinian medics in Gaza, buried them and lied about them being “terrorists.” For those paying attention, this barbarism is not new, only the latest war crime committed by Israel in a litany of war crimes over the decades.

(Article by Eva Bartlett republished from RT.com)

The combination of the medics being tied up, executed and buried in a mass grave was so horrific that even usually indifferent global media reported on it, albeit without the outrage that would have accompanied such reports were the perpetrator an enemy of the West. (Warning: disturbing video.)

On March 31, Jonathan Whittall, the Head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA) posted on X, “First responders should never be a target. Yet today @UNOCHA supported @PalestineRCS and Civil Defense to retrieve colleagues from a mass grave in #Rafah #Gaza that was marked with the emergency light from one of their crushed ambulances.”

His thread went on to detail how a week prior, on March 23, contact was lost with ten Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and six Civil Defense first responders, in five ambulances and one fire truck, who’d been dispatched to collect injured people, noting, “For days, OCHA coordinated to reach the site but our access was only granted 5 days later.”

When they finally accessed the site, they “recovered the buried bodies of 8 PRCS, 6 Civil Defense and 1 UN staff,” he wrote, noting, “They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives. This should never have happened.”

Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson, Mahmoud Basal, separately said, “One of the Civil Defense crews had his feet tied, another had his clothes removed from his upper body, another was beheaded. Among all the martyrs, the least harmed had 20 bullets fired at him, in his chest.”

According to the PRCS, a ninth EMT is missing and is believed to have been detained.

The UN, The Red Cross, and OCHA have all issued statements of outrage and condemnation of these murders. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Secretary General Jagan Chapagain said: “They wore emblems that should have protected them; their ambulances were clearly marked. They should have returned to their families; they did not. These rules of International Humanitarian Law could not be clearer – civilians must be protected; humanitarians must be protected. Health services must be protected.”

According to Chapagain, 30 PRCS volunteers and staff have been killed since October 2023 alone.

OCHA called the murders “a huge blow to us” and said, “these abhorrent acts require accountability.” According to the UN, “408 aid workers including more than 280 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza since the war began on 7 October 2023.”

Tom Fletcher, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, wrote, “They were killed by Israeli forces while trying to save lives. We demand answers & justice.”

The Guardian cites PRCS’ Dr. Bashar Murad, who spoke to one of the paramedics in the convoy:

“He informed us that he was injured and requested assistance, and that another person was also injured. A few minutes later, during the call, we heard the sound of Israeli soldiers arriving at the location, speaking in Hebrew. ‘Gather them at the wall and bring some restraints to tie them.’ This indicated that a large number of the medical staff were still alive.”

The Israeli army media spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, predictably denied Israeli army wrong-doing and blamed Hamas, claiming the ambulances were “advancing suspiciously” toward Israeli forces. He declared the execution of the medics be an elimination of “a Hamas military operative, along with 8 other terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.”

Observers on X rebuffed Shoshani, including pointing out the Israeli army has been attacking ambulances for a very long time.

Gaza medics under Israeli attack since 2009

I can speak from personal experience. During the January 2009 Israeli war on Gaza, I was among a handful of international volunteers riding in PRCS ambulances, to document their work and the victims they rescued.

The first night of the Israeli land invasion, we were based in a PCRS center in Ezbet abed Rabbo, east of Jabaliya, with Israeli shelling around us. By morning, we had to evacuate. By the end of the war, the center was nearly destroyed.

But in terms of direct attacks on ambulances, and hospitals, I can attest they occurred against unarmed medics in ambulances not carrying any Palestinian resistance, but retrieving wounded or killed Palestinian civilians, including elderly ones.

In one instance, an Israeli sniper fired at least 14 shots at medics and the ambulance I was in, targeting the uniformed medics during supposed ceasefire hours, shooting one medic in the leg and damaging the vehicle.

A week prior, a medic I had accompanied one dangerous evening in the northwest of Gaza was killed the next day when the Israeli army fired a flechette shell (dart bomb) directly at his ambulance, shredding him with the razor sharp darts, killing him. Survivors from the scene corroborated there were no resistance, only medics and wounded and killed civilians.

A week later, the Israeli army repeatedly bombed al-Quds hospital, meaning medics had to evacuate to al-Shifa hospital, risking being shot by Israeli soldiers while doing so. I was with the medics and saw the damage and resulting fire from the Israeli bombing of the hospital.

I later took testimonies from other PRCS medics who had been targeted by the Israeli army, some multiple times over the years.

Two medics told me how after getting permission from Israel, via the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to retrieve the wounded and the dead, three ambulances and an ICRC jeep came under Israeli fire repeatedly in northern Gaza.

“We were driving to the area, speaking with the Israelis on the phone. They’d tell us which way to drive, what road to take. When we got near the wounded, Israeli soldiers started firing. I told them, ‘We have coordination’ and they said to wait. Then they began firing at us again.”

According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), that same day, Israeli soldiers fired on a convoy of 11 ambulances led by a clearly marked ICRC vehicle in central Gaza, injuring an ICRC staff member and damaging the vehicle.

Another medic was shot in the leg while on a mission for PRCS in May 2008, and was twice targeted by Israeli snipers during the 2009 war. He was also in a building that was being bombed while emergency workers tried to evacuate the victims.

“I was with Dr. Issa Saleh coming down the stairs from the sixth floor of an apartment building in Jabaliya, evacuating a martyr, when the Israelis again shelled the building. They knew there were medics inside. They could see our uniforms and the ambulances outside.” Dr. Saleh was killed, decapitated by the bombing.

The testimonies I took then included many more cases of medics going to save injured Palestinians and coming under Israeli fire, preventing them from reaching those who needed help. Reports at the time also spoke of a handwritten order in Hebrew found in Gaza, directing Israeli soldiers to “open fire also upon rescue.”

In 2007, in the West Bank, during an Israeli invasion of Nablus, I saw Israeli soldiers take a Palestinian Medical Relief (PRM) volunteer (who had been part of a group escorting civilians to their old city homes) hostage, blindfold and handcuff him and use him as a human shield.

Even back then, targeted arrest and detention of medics was common as a form of collective punishment for the volunteers providing essential emergency services to wounded Palestinians. When not arrested, medics and ambulances would still be routinely denied access to emergency areas, denying the wounded the attention they desperately needed.

Fast forward to 2023 and 2024. The Israeli army repeatedly bombed hospitals throughout Gaza, invaded them, occupied and destroyed them, routinely killing medics, doctors and emergency workers.

It is clear that for Israeli soldiers, killing medical workers is a policy, whether in ambulances or hospitals. It’s also clear that while words of condemnation will sometimes be uttered by Western powers, Israel is never held accountable for these crimes.

Denying civilians medical care

In January, I wrote about Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian doctor from northern Gaza abducted and imprisoned by the Israeli army last December. In that article I noted that three doctors from Gaza in Israeli prisons had already been tortured to death in the last year plus, and that there is grave concern for Dr. Abu Safiya’s life.

Since then, other Palestinian hostages released from Israeli detention have confirmed Dr. Abu Safiya is being tortured. More recently, the Israeli Beersheba Court has issued a six-month administrative detention order for Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, administrative detention being the means Israel uses to imprison Palestinians without charge.

The abduction and torture of Palestinian doctors is another aspect of Israel’s all-out attack on Gaza’s health system. It is part of Israel’s attacks on Palestinians themselves, depriving them of life-saving care, part of the decades-long policy of killing Palestinians by every means possible, including by preventing the entry of medical equipment and food, starving Palestinians who escaped bombs and sniping.

I will post the same rhetorical question I’ve posed ad naseum: What would the international reaction be like if it were Russia point-blank assassinating uniformed, unarmed medics? It would be non-stop 24/7 howling in corporate media, victims faces and stories spoken of, demands for more sanctions…

But Israel does this again and again over the decades and all Palestinians get are muted words of concern and calls for investigation, allowing Israel to continue slaughtering medics and emergency workers unabated. No justice.

Read more at: RT.com