Survivor challenges Israeli account of attack on Gaza ambulances


“I am the only survivor who saw what happened to my colleagues.”
They survived the Israeli attack, which killed 15 emergency workers in Gaza by diving on the ground at the back of his ambulance, as his colleagues at the front were shot in the early hours of March 23.
“We Left the Headquarters Roughly at Dawn,” He Told One of the BBC’s Trusted Freelance Journalists Working in Gaza, Explaining How The Response Team from the Palestinian Red Crescent, GAZA’s CIVIL Defence Agency and the Ungency for Palestinian Refgeees (Unrwa) Gathed on the Edge of the South City of Rafah after Receiving Reports of Gunfire and Wouded People.
“By 04:30, all civil defense vehicles were in place. At 04:40, the first two cars came out. At 04:50, the last vehicle arrived at around 05:00, the agency [UN] The car was fired directly on the street. “
The Israeli army says that its forces opened fire because the vehicles were moving excitingly towards the soldiers without prior coordination and its lights. He also claimed that nine Hamas workers and the Islamic Palestinians were killed in the incident.

Munther challenges this account.
He says: “During the day and at night, it is the same. The outer and internal lights work.
After that, he adds, he was withdrawn from the debris by Israeli soldiers, and they were arrested and disobedient. He claimed that he was interrogated for 15 hours, before his release.
BBC has placed his claims to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), but it has not yet responded.
“The Israeli Defense Army randomly did not attack an ambulance,” as Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed, upon interrogation at a press conference, echoing the statements of the Israeli Defense Army.
“Several non -coordinated vehicles were identified by the Israeli Defense Forces without headlights or emergency signals. Then the Israeli Defense Forces opened fire to the suspected vehicles.”
He added: “After an initial evaluation, it was decided that the forces had canceled a military terrorist in Hamas, Muhammad Amin Ibrahim Shobaki, who participated in the October 7 massacre, along with eight other terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.”

Chopaki’s name is not included in the 15 -year -old emergency workers list – eight of whom were paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent, and six respondents for the civil defense, and he was one of UNRWA employees.
Israel did not represent the location of Chopaki’s body or provided any evidence of the direct threat posed by emergency workers.
Munther rejects Israel’s claim that Hamas may have used ambulances as a cover.
“This is completely incorrect. All the crews are civil,” he says.
“We do not belong to any militant group. Our main duty is to provide ambulance services and save people’s lives. No more, no less.”

The paramedics in Gaza carried their colleagues to their funerals earlier this week. There was a protest of sadness along with invitations to accountability. One of the bereaved father told the BBC that his son was killed “in cold blood.”
International agencies cannot only reach the region to recover their bodies a week after the attack. They were found buried in the sand, along with the shattered ambulances, the fire truck and the United Nations.
“What we know is that fifteen people lost their lives, and that they were buried in shallow tombs in sand in the middle of the road, and they are treated with full discontent and what appears to be a violation of international humanitarian law,” says Sam Rose, the Acting Director of the Gaza Office in UNRWA.
“But only if we have an investigation, a complete and complete investigation, we will be able to reach the bottom.”

Israel has not yet committed to the investigation. According to the United Nations, at least 1060 health care workers have been killed since the conflict began.
“All ambulances, all of whom are paramedics, and all human workers inside Gaza, are now increasingly insecure, increasingly fragile,” says Rose.
One of the paramedics is still missing to follow the incident of March 23.
“They were not only colleagues but friends,” says Months. “We used to eat, drink, laugh and be together … I consider them my second family.”
“I will present the crimes committed by the occupation [Israel] Against my colleagues. If I were not the only survivor, who could have told the world what they did to our colleagues, and who would have told their story? “
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2025-04-02 16:28:00