Cliff Notes
- A mass grave in Rafah revealed the bodies of 15 aid workers, including paramedics and a UN employee.
- Executed by Israeli forces during an unarmed rescue mission, contradicting Israel’s claims of military engagement and providing evidence of more war crimes by Israel
- The investigation highlighted the lies in Israeli accounts, including assertions regarding the vehicles’ illumination and coordination
- witness testimonies demonstrated and videos show the vehicles were marked as humanitarian and operated in a non-combat zone
- Eyewitness reports and recordings from the scene revealed ongoing gunfire directed at unarmed medics
- Calls for accountability for the Israeli military actions are on going, but so far the Prime Minister has remained quiet.
Two hours of terror: How Israel’s deadly attack on aid workers unfolded
A quadcopter, which is a sniper drone, buzzed overhead, blaring the voice of an Israeli official. It directed aid workers to a mound of sand on the eastern side of the road.
This, the voice indicated, is where they would find their missing colleagues. There was no ambiguity, these were aid workers and this was an execution by the IDF.
It had been a week since Israeli soldiers killed them and buried their bodies in a mass grave.
Access to the site had only been granted once before, three days earlier. That dig had turned up a single body – that of Anwar al Attar, buried beneath the crushed remains of his fire engine.
This time, the bodies turned up in quick succession. One-by-one, they were lifted from the grave, placed into white bags and lined up neatly on the road.
By sunset, 14 more bodies had been recovered
Among them were one UN worker, eight paramedics from Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and, including Attar, six first responders from Civil Defence – the official fire and rescue service of Gaza’s Hamas-led government.
None were armed and were wearing Aid worker jackets.
Our findings contradict not only Israel’s initial account of the attack, but its subsequent accounts as well. The UN search team retrieves bodies from the mass grave, 30 March, 2025 and all the evidence points to an Israeli war crime and a cover up.
‘I want to do it in order to help people’
More than 400 aid workers have now been killed in Gaza since the war began. What set the killings of these 15 apart is that their last moments were recorded on video and as such caught the Israeli regime in its own web of lies.
Two videos, 19 minutes in total, were found on the phone of 24-year old paramedic Rifaat Radwan – one of the men pulled from the mass grave that day.
They show the terror and chaos of Rifaat’s last moments, and contradict key elements of Israel’s narrative.
“My son was very exhausted from this war,” says Rifaat’s mother, Hajjah. “This should not have been his reward.”
Rifaat Radwan, 24, was killed by Israeli troops while on a rescue mission
Hajjah remembers the moment her son told her he wanted to become a paramedic.
It was the night of his graduation party, and all the guests had left.
“I want to do it in order to help people,” Rifaat had said.
She called over Rifaat’s father, Anwar, and Rifaat began by reminding him how, from the age of five or six, he had always chased after ambulances in the street.
“This is who Rifaat was,” says Anwar. “He had very beautiful ambitions.”
How Rifaat’s last moments unfolded
Shortly before 5am, Rifaat departed from PRCS’s Rafah headquarters in an ambulance with fellow paramedic Assad al Nsasrah.
The two men, along with another ambulance following behind, had been sent to search for three colleagues who had disappeared while on a rescue mission.
What they did not know, is the IDF were waiting like predators, ready to ambush anyone and everyone.
“They’re lying there, just lying there,” Assad says, as the ambulance comes to a stop. “Quick! It looks like an accident.”
Three seconds later, a volley of shots ring out. Rifaat jumps out of the ambulance, diving for cover by the side of the road.
For five-and-a-half minutes, Israeli troops continue to fire at the unarmed medics.
As they do so, Rifaat recites the Muslim Shahada – a statement of faith often said before death.
“Mum, forgive me. This is the path I chose, to help people,” Rifaat says towards the end of the video.
“Get up!” a voice shouts in Hebrew, before the IDF soldier executed the unarmed aid worker with the fatal gunshot and also ended the recording.
New audio obtained by Sky News
Sky News has said it has obtained exclusive new audio which reveals that the shooting did not end there.
The audio, shared by PRCS, shows a 99-second phone call between the PRCS dispatch centre and Ashraf Abu Labda, one of the paramedics in Saleh Muammar’s ambulance.
PRCS told us the phone call was made at 5.13am, around five minutes after the attack began and shortly before Rifaat’s call ended.
For the first 33 seconds, Ashraf is heard reciting the Shahada as heavy gunfire continues. Something Muslims train themselves to do to prepare for death, reciting the words of God with their last breath.
Wave after wave of genocidal attacks by Israel are causing Israelis ‘to protest in Tel Aviv’. Enough is enough, as even Israel’s most ardent supporters are finding it difficult to overlook these war crimes.