It was in the early morning hours of March 23, 2025, that Munther Abed and his rescue team were dispatched by emergency services to the Hashasheen area in Rafah in southern Gaza. 

Then the shooting began.

"On the way, we came under direct fire aimed at the car. When the shooting began, I lay on the floor in the back cabin of the car. After that I heard nothing," Abed, a volunteer paramedic with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), told DW by phone from Gaza. 

His two coworkers in the front of the vehicle were killed. The next thing he heard were Israeli soldiers approaching. The 27-year-old said he was detained, beaten and questioned by the Israeli troops and only released hours later. 

Abed was part of the first team of responders that came under fire by Israeli forces at dawn. In the hours that followed, additional rescue and aid teams searching for their colleagues were also struck, according to PRCS. 

In all, 15 Palestinian rescue workers and paramedics were killed by Israeli forces that day, including eight from PRCS, six from the Palestinian Civil Defense and one UN staffer. The military then buried them in a shallow grave alongside their crushed vehicles. 

UN: 'Ambulances 'hit one by one'

The incident sparked international condemnation and calls for a thorough, independent investigation, even more so after a video emerged that cast doubt on the Israeli military's version of events leading to the killing of the rescue workers. The Israeli military has said that its investigation is ongoing.

"They were being dispatched into Rafah as Israeli forces were advancing into the area, the ambulances were hit one by one as they advanced," said Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN humanitarian office OCHA in the Palestinian territories, at a press briefing on April 2 and who documented the recovery of the bodies.

It took several days of negotiations between the Israeli military, the United Nations and Palestinian emergency services to coordinate safe passage to the area, Whittall said.

"It was shocking for us to experience. These were medical workers from [Palestine] Red Crescent Society and the Civil Defense, still in their uniforms, still wearing gloves," he said. 

"They were killed while trying to save lives."

Israeli military: 'A terrorist threat'

In an initial statement on March 31, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that "several uncoordinated vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights, or emergency signals" and that IDF troops fired at the vehicles. 

The IDF further said that the forces had eliminated nine militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but only one of them was named.

The Israeli military has consistently accused Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by several countries, including Germany, the United States and the European Union, of using civilian infrastructure for its military purposes.

An Israeli military official later rejected media reports the bodies were found with their hands tied. 

On April 5, however, the New York Times published a video that contradicts the Israeli account. The video was recovered from the mobile phone of one of the rescuers, Rifaat Radwan, who was killed in the incident.

The more than six-minutes-long video appears to show the final moments of one of the rescue teams which was dispatched to the scene, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

The footage appears to have been filmed from inside one of the moving ambulances. It shows a fire engine and clearly marked ambulances, with their emergency lights flashing, driving along a road in the dark. 

After the vehicles stop near another vehicle that appears to have veered off the road, clearly marked rescue workers in reflective gear are seen in the video. When the ambulance from which the video was taken stopped, gun fire shots are heard for more than five minutes, continuing as the screen fades to black. Voices can be heard throughout the footage, at one point one voice is heard reciting prayers.

Israel backtracks on initial explanation

The video prompted the Israeli military to backtrack on claims that the emergency vehicles were advancing without headlights or emergency signals. An Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said on Saturday evening that some initial accounts from the troops on the scene were "mistaken" and that the incident was still under investigation.

On Monday, the IDF said that a preliminary inquiry into the incident was completed but that the IDF army chief, Eyal Zamir, "instructed that the inquiry be pursued in greater depth."

The statement added that the incident took place in a "combat zone,” and that the inquiry "indicated that the troops opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area, and that six of the individuals killed in the incident were identified as Hamas terrorists." It did not provide names or further evidence about the six individuals. 

Red Crescent: Medics shot 'with the intent to kill'

In a press conference on Monday in Ramallah, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society rejected the Israeli military's claim that the area the ambulance teams were trying to reach was in a "red zone" or a combat zone that needed prior coordination with the military.

It also revealed some findings of the autopsies done on the paramedics. 

"We cannot disclose everything we know, but I will say that all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill," Younis Al Khatib, president of the Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, told journalists.

He called for "an independent and impartial international commission of inquiry" to investigate the incident.

Deadly conflict for aid workers 

According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 30 Palestinian Red Crescent personnel have been killed since the beginning of Israel's war on Hamas 18 months ago. Israel launched the offensive after Hamas-led terror attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Following a ceasefire which came into effect in January and saw the release of more than 30 hostages held by Hamas and other militant groups, Israel resumed its airstrikes and ground operation on March 18.

Bilal Muammar lost his brother Saleh in the attack on the aid workers. He had the grim task of identifying him — more than a week after he and his team had gone missing — at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. Saleh was seriously injured twice during the ongoing war and had narrowly escaped death before, his brother said. 

"He used to jokingly tell me that the third time would be the last," Muammar told DW by phone from Khan Younis. "It turns out it wasn't a joke."

Despite the huge risks the rescue teams had to take every day, Saleh was dedicated to his job, his brother said. 

"He wasn't just a paramedic — he was a human being in every sense of the word," Muammar said. "He repaired ambulances himself, visited the injured in their homes, and distributed whatever medicines he had."

Edited by: Andreas Illmer

Note: Israel has banned foreign media from entering Gaza since the start of the war with Hamas.