Survivor defies the Israeli account of the attack on Gaza ambulances

“I am the only survivor who saw what happened to my colleagues,” says Munther Abed, scrolling the photos of his paramedical ambulance colleagues on his phone.

He survived the Israeli attack which killed 15 emergencies in Gaza by diving on the ground at the back of his ambulance, because his two colleagues at the front were slaughtered in the early hours of March 23.

“We left the headquarters about Dawn,” he told one of the BBC independent journalists working in Gaza, explaining how the Palestinian Red Red Crescent Intervention team, the Gaza Civil Defense Agency and the United Nations Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) met at the tip of the southern city of Rafah after and Washed People.

“About 04:30 am, all civil defense vehicles were in place. At 4:40 am, the first two vehicles left. At 4:50 am, the last vehicle arrived. At around 05:00, the agency car (UN) was shot down directly on the street,” he said.

The Israeli army claims that its forces opened fire because the vehicles moved suspect to soldiers without prior coordination and with their extinguished lights. He also said that nine Palestinian Islamic jihad agents had been killed in the incident.

Munther defies this account.

“During the day and the night, it’s the same thing. The external and internal lights are on. Everything tells you that it is an ambulance vehicle that belongs to the Palestinian red crescent. All the lights were lit until the vehicle passes under direct fire,” he said.

After that, he adds, he was removed from the wreckage by Israeli soldiers, arrested and blindfolded. He said he was questioned over 3 p.m. before being released.

The BBC has filed its statements to the Israeli Defense Forces (FDI), but it has not yet responded.

“The FDIs did not attack an ambulance at random,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel, Gideon Saar during an interrogation during a press conference, echoing the declarations of FDI.

“Several non -coordinated vehicles have been identified, advancing the TSAhal troops without headlights or emergency signals. The FDI troops then opened fire on suspicious vehicles.”

He added: “After an initial assessment, it was determined that the forces had eliminated a military terrorist from Hamas, Mohammed Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, who participated in the massacre of October 7, as well as eight other terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.”

Shubaki’s name is not on the list of 15 emergency dead – eight of whom were doctors of the Palestinian Red Crescent, six were the first civil defense stakeholders, and one was a member of UNRWA staff.

Israel did not take into account the place where Shubaki’s body or proposed evidence of the direct threat that emergency workers have posed.

Munther rejects Israel’s assertion that Hamas may have used ambulances as a cover.

“It’s completely false. All the crews are civilian,” he said.

“We do not belong to any militant group. Our main duty is to offer ambulance services and save people’s lives. No more, no less.”

The paramedical paramedics of Gaza brought their own colleagues to their funeral earlier this week. There was an outcry of sorrow as well as calls for responsibility. A bereaved father told the BBC that his son had been killed “cold blood”.

International agencies could only access the region to recover their bodies a week after the attack. They were found buried in sand alongside the rugged ambulances, the fire truck and the UN vehicle.

Sam Rose, acting director of the UNRWA Gaza office, said: “What we know is that fifteen people have lost their lives, that they were buried in shallow tombs in a sandmen in the middle of the road, treated with complete indignity and what seems to be an offense in international humanitarian law.

“But it is only if we have a survey, a complete and complete survey, that we will be able to go to the bottom of it.”

Israel has not yet engaged in an investigation. According to the UN, at least 1,060 health workers have been killed since the start of the conflict.

“Admittedly, all ambulance workers, all doctors, all humanitarian workers inside Gaza at the moment are increasingly precarious, more and more fragile,” said Rose.

An ambulancer is still not worn as a result of the March 23 incident.

“They were not only colleagues but friends,” says Munther, nervously making prayer pearls through his fingers. “We used to eat, drink, laugh and have jokes together … I consider them my second family.”

“I will expose the crimes committed by the occupation (Israel) against my colleagues. If I was not the only survivor, who could have told the world what they had done to our colleagues, and who would have told their story?”