BBC Arabic
BBC“My coronary heart and soul died when Rifaat was killed,” says Hajjah Umm Mohammed, the mom of a Palestinian paramedic who was one in every of 15 emergency employees killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza final month.
Rifaat Radwan, 23, was travelling in a Palestinian Purple Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance in a convoy of emergency autos when it got here underneath hearth on the outskirts of Rafah on 23 March.
“I by no means anticipated him to be killed, particularly because the space was labeled as ‘inexperienced’, that means protected and open to ambulances,” she provides.
The Israeli army initially claimed the troops opened hearth as a result of the convoy approached them “suspiciously” in darkness with out headlights or flashing emergency lights.
Nevertheless, video filmed by Rifaat and found on his phone after his body was recovered, confirmed the autos’ lights had been on as they answered a name to assist wounded individuals.
“Forgive me, mom… that is the trail I selected to assist individuals,” Rifaat could be heard saying within the video shortly earlier than he was killed, amid the sound of heavy gunfire.
Umm Mohammed believes he was asking for her forgiveness as a result of he knew she would by no means see him once more.
“I entrusted Rifaat to God each time he went out to work,” she says. “He was courageous, travelling throughout Gaza from north to south.”
Rifaat started volunteering with the PRCS after Israel launched a army marketing campaign in Gaza following Hamas’s unprecedented cross-border assault on 7 October 2023.
Umm Mohammed says her son loved humanitarian work.
“He even transported the wounded to cross into Egypt for remedy by means of the Rafah crossing.”
Umm Mohammed explains that on the day he died, Rifaat had gone out with an ambulance after studies of a number of killed in an Israeli air strike.
“I did not know he could be one in every of them [too],” she says.
It was every week earlier than his physique and people of his colleagues had been discovered buried in a shallow grave on 30 March.
“As an alternative of celebrating Eid al-Fitr with Rifaat, we went with the Purple Cross to gather his physique from Nasser hospital in Khan Younis to bury him,” she remembers.
“It was badly decomposed and so they would not enable me to see it.”
Umm Mohammed says he was an “completely stunning” human being and the only real supporter of her and his father in any case his siblings received married.
Following the invention of the video footage, an Israeli army official modified its preliminary account that claimed the autos approached with out their lights on. The official stated the one who gave the account was “mistaken”.
The official additionally stated the troops perceived the emergency employees as a menace due to an earlier encounter within the space, and that no less than six of these killed had been Hamas operatives, with out offering any proof.
The troops buried the our bodies, together with Rifaat’s, in sand to guard them from wild animals, the official stated.
They weren’t uncovered till every week after the incident as a result of worldwide companies, together with the UN, couldn’t organise protected passage to the world or find the spot.
When the UN-led workforce discovered the our bodies in addition they found Rifaat’s cell phone containing footage of the incident.
The Israel Protection Forces (IDF) has promised a “thorough examination” of the incident, saying it might “perceive the sequence of occasions and the dealing with of the state of affairs”.
The PRCS has alleged that the emergency employees had been focused in a “sequence of deliberate assaults” which constituted a “full-fledged struggle crime”, and demanded an impartial worldwide investigation.
“We want justice for the victims. We have to be sure that all of those that are accountable are held to account. With out this, the crimes will proceed to occur,” PRCS spokeswoman Nebal Farsakh stated on Wednesday.
“I’ve already misplaced 27 PRCS colleagues. All of them had been killed whereas doing their humanitarian work. All of them had been killed whereas sporting the Purple Crescent emblem. This isn’t acceptable. It ought to by no means, ever have occurred. We’re not targets. And worldwide humanitarian legislation is evident – humanitarians, medical personnel must be revered and guarded.”
Munther Abed, a paramedic who survived the incident, says he and his colleagues had been fired at with out warning.
“I dropped to the ground at the back of the automobile and did not hear any sound from my colleagues besides their dying gasps,” he told the BBC last week.
“Then, Israeli particular forces arrested me, pinning my head to the bottom so I could not see what occurred to my workforce.”
Holding again tears, Munther added: “After I came upon they had been all martyred, it crushed me. They had been my second household… my brothers, my associates, my family members.
“I needed I had died from the horror of what I noticed.”
He says his telephone was confiscated when he was detained.
“They interrogated me for 15 hours with beatings, insults, and each bodily and verbal torture,” he provides.
The BBC has put his claims to the IDF, however it’s but to reply.
The PRCS stated the world the emergency employees had been in had not been labeled by the Israeli army as a “purple zone”, which meant no prior co-ordination was required to entry the location, and that the video confirmed that Israeli army autos had not been seen within the space.
It stated preliminary forensic studies confirmed that the paramedics had been killed by “a number of gunshot wounds to the higher elements of the our bodies”, which it described as “additional proof of deliberate killing”.
It additionally dismissed the IDF’s inner inquiry and rejected the IDF’s accusation that Hamas operatives had been amongst these killed.
AFPThe IDF stated in a press release on Monday that its Chief of Employees, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, had been offered with the findings of the preliminary inquiry into the incident and instructed that it’s “pursued in larger depth and accomplished within the coming days by the final employees investigation mechanism”.
“All of the claims raised relating to the incident will likely be examined by means of the mechanism and offered in an in depth and thorough method for a call on easy methods to deal with the occasion,” it added.
About 1,200 individuals had been killed and 251 had been taken hostage within the Hamas assault on Israel on 7 October 2023.
Greater than 50,750 individuals have been killed in Gaza since then, in response to the territory’s Hamas-run well being ministry.
A ceasefire deal introduced in January collapsed in March and there are at present 59 hostages nonetheless held in Gaza, 24 of whom are believed to be nonetheless alive.
