A video published by The New York Times on April 5th 2025 has laid bare the final moments of 15 Palestinian paramedics and civil defence workers killed by Israeli forces in Rafah. The video showing the final moments of Gaza emergency workers, recovered from the mobile phone of martyred paramedic Rifaat Radwan, casts doubt on Israeli accounts of killings and offers devastating evidence that contradicts the Israeli military’s justification for the March 23rd attack.
“A video, discovered on the cellphone of a paramedic who was found along with 14 other aid workers in a mass grave in Gaza in late March, shows that the ambulances and fire truck that they were traveling in were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire. (sic)”
The new York times
The video showing the final moments of Gaza emergency workers reveals emergency vehicles with lights clearly activated—directly contradicting Israel’s initial claim that the convoy approached Israeli positions “suspiciously” in darkness “without headlights or emergency signals.”
The footage continues for more than five minutes, capturing Ridwan’s last prayers before Israeli soldiers can be heard approaching the vehicles.
To watch the full video visit our official Telegram channel.
“Forgive me, mother”—the final testament
“Forgive me, mother… this is the path I chose, mother… to help people. Forgive me, mother.” These were paramedic Rifaat Radwan’s final recorded words before he was killed alongside his colleagues while performing humanitarian duty in Rafah.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society had announced the discovery of 14 bodies following the attack, including eight Red Crescent workers, five Civil Defence personnel, and a United Nations agency staff member.
The Palestinian Civil Defence later recovered the body of an additional team member, bringing the death toll to 15.
Particularly damning is the video’s clear depiction of marked emergency vehicles with activated lights, directly refuting the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claim that the vehicles were advancing without proper identification.
After the footage emerged, Israel was forced to walk back its earlier assertions, admitting its soldiers had made “mistakes” and that its earlier account claiming the vehicles approached without lights was “inaccurate.”
Resistance movements demand accountability
Palestinian resistance organisations have responded with fierce condemnation, highlighting how the video casts doubt on Israeli accounts of killings and demanding international action.
The left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) issued a detailed statement calling the incident “a Documented War Crime that Exposes the Brutality of the Occupation and Reveals U.S. Complicity and Global Silence. (sic)”
“The footage, found on the phone of martyr Rifaat Radwan, clearly shows that they were working among ambulances bearing bright and clear humanitarian markings—yet they were deliberately targeted in cold blood, in a war crime that proves the occupation does not differentiate between a medic, a civilian, or a resistance fighter,” the PFLP statement declared.
“The occupation’s usual attempts to justify its crimes with flimsy ‘security’ pretexts collapse in the face of this shocking documentation. It adds to thousands of verified eyewitness testimonies and reveals the extent of war crimes, genocide, and ethnic cleansing being perpetrated against our people,” the Marxist-Leninist organisation continued.
The PFLP urged “the free people of the world—nations, institutions, solidarity movements, and boycott campaigns—to take urgent action to break the wall of silence, escalate protests, uprisings, and civil disobedience against the occupation and its supporters, in defence of our people, in support of Palestinian rights, and the preservation of human dignity everywhere.”
Hamas likewise issued a forceful response, stating that the “footage found on the phone of the martyred paramedic Rifaat Radwan… reveals a horrific field execution deliberately committed by the Zionist occupation army.”
“This shocking video is not merely a tragic scene—it is irrefutable evidence of the occupation’s savagery and blatant violation of international laws and conventions,” the Hamas statement continued.
“It also exposes a deliberate attempt to conceal the crime by burying the victims in mass graves and suppressing the truth, reflecting the fascist and criminal nature of this entity and adding another chapter to its record of crimes against humanity,” the statement added.
Watch the full video showing the final moments of Gaza emergency workers, which casts doubt on the Israeli account of killings, on East Post’s official Telegram channel.
Israel’s shifting narrative on video showing final moments of Gaza emergency workers
As the video showing the final moments of Gaza emergency workers circulated globally, Israel’s account of the incident has evolved considerably.
The IDF now claims that soldiers had earlier fired on a car supposedly containing three Hamas members.
When the ambulances responded to the area, aerial surveillance monitors informed the soldiers of a convoy “advancing suspiciously.”
According to this revised narrative, when the ambulances stopped beside the Hamas car, the soldiers assumed they were under threat and opened fire, despite—by Israel’s own admission—having no evidence that any of the emergency workers were armed.
An IDF official further claimed that soldiers buried the bodies of the 15 dead workers in the sand “to protect them from wild animals,” and that the vehicles were moved and buried the following day “to clear the road.”
They were not uncovered until a week after the incident because international agencies could not organise safe passage to the area.
The military official denied that any of the medics were handcuffed before they died or executed at close range, though these denials have done little to quell international outrage.
A pattern of targeting medical workers
The Popular Resistance Committees stated that the video “proves that everything the zionist army and enemy leaders are saying is nothing but blatant and false fabrications aimed at justifying their heinous crimes.”
Similarly, the Mujahideen Movement stated that the video confirms “the vileness and brutality” of the Israeli government and military.
“What was shown in the circulated video of the targeting of the Civil Defense members proves the falsity of all the stories previously told by the entity, (sic)” it said in a statement.
Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal affirmed that the video exposed the falseness of the Israeli narrative, noting that even the Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported that the IDF had lied in its first statement about the massacre.
Mr Basal demanded an international investigation, stating that the incident resembles the murder of Hind Rajab “in terms of deliberate targeting and promotion of false narratives.”
He also rejected Israel’s claim that six Hamas members were among the rescue team.
The Red Crescent and numerous international organisations have joined calls for an independent investigation into the killings, which occurred after Israel renewed its aerial bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza on March 18th following the collapse of ceasefire negotiations.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, more than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since that date, adding to a death toll that has now exceeded 50,600 since October 2023, with the majority of victims being women and children.
The burden of evidence
The video showing the final moments of Gaza emergency workers presents a profound challenge to Israel’s ability to control the narrative around its military actions in Gaza.
In an era of ubiquitous documentation, the footage offers a visceral, first-person account that casts doubt on Israeli accounts of killings in ways that official statements cannot easily dismiss.
As international pressure mounts for accountability, the recovered footage stands as a powerful testament to the human cost of the conflict—and to the increasingly difficult task of justifying actions that, when seen through an unfiltered lens, appear to violate the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.
For the families of the paramedics who lost their lives while attempting to save others, the video provides a heartbreaking final connection to their loved ones.
For the wider world, it offers uncomfortable evidence that casts doubt on Israeli accounts of killings and underscores the urgent need for independent investigation and accountability.
Watch the full video showing the final moments of Gaza emergency workers, which casts doubt on the Israeli account of killings, on East Post’s official Telegram channel.
