Video Shows Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Under Gunfire Barrage, With Ambulance Lights On

A video recording, discovered on the cellphone of one of the paramedics who was found along with 14 other aid workers in a mass grave in the Gazan city of Rafah in late March and obtained by The New York Times, shows that the ambulances and fire truck that they were traveling in were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire.

Officials from the Palestine Red Crescent Society said at a news conference on Friday at the United Nations moderated by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies that they had presented the nearly seven-minute recording to the U.N. Security Council.

An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said earlier this week that Israeli forces did not “randomly attack” an ambulance, but that several vehicles “were identified advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals toward Israeli troops, prompting them to shoot. Colonel Shoshani said earlier in the week that nine of those killed were Palestinian militants. Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the video.

The Times obtained the video from a senior diplomat at the United Nations who asked not to be identified to be able to share sensitive information.

The Times verified the location and timing of the video. Filmed from what appears to be the front interior of a moving vehicle, it shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, clearly marked with headlights and flashing lights turned on, driving south on a road to the north of Rafah in the early morning. The first rays of sun can be seen, and birds are chirping.

The convoy stops when it encounters a vehicle that had veered onto the side of the road — one ambulance had been dispatched earlier to aid wounded civilians and had come under attack. The new rescue vehicles detoured to the side of the road.