A quadcopter buzzed overhead, blaring the voice of an Israeli reliable. It directed assist staff to a mound of sand at the japanese facet of the street.
This, the voice indicated, is the place they might in finding their lacking colleagues.
It have been every week since Israeli squaddies killed them and buried their our bodies in a mass grave.
Symbol: Seek crew on the web site of the mass grave in Tel Sultan, Rafah, 30 March. Pic: Planet Labs PBC
Get entry to to the web site had most effective been granted as soon as sooner than, 3 days previous. That dig had became up a unmarried frame – that of Anwar al Attar, buried underneath the beaten stays of his hearth engine.
This time, the our bodies became up in fast succession. One-by-one, they had been lifted from the grave, positioned into white baggage and coated up smartly at the street.
By means of sundown, 14 extra our bodies have been recovered.
Amongst them had been one UN employee, 8 paramedics from Palestine Pink Crescent Society (PRCS) and, together with Attar, six first responders from Civil Defence – the reliable hearth and rescue carrier of Gaza’s Hamas-led govt.
None had been armed.
Symbol: Fifteen assist staff and primary responders had been killed through Israeli forces on 15 March
Israel has denied all wrongdoing, announcing its troops had explanation why to suspect the automobiles contained Hamas operatives and that they had been later confirmed proper.
The use of visible proof, satellite tv for pc imagery, audio research and interviews with key witnesses, Sky Information can provide probably the most complete image of the incident thus far.
Our findings contradict no longer most effective Israel’s preliminary account of the assault, however its next accounts as smartly.
Symbol: The hunt crew retrieves our bodies from the mass grave, 30 March, 2025. Pic: UN
‘I wish to do it with a purpose to lend a hand folks’
Greater than 400 assist staff have now been killed in Gaza because the struggle started. What set the killings of those 15 aside is that their closing moments had been recorded on video.
Two movies, 19 mins in overall, had been discovered at the telephone of 24-year previous paramedic Rifaat Radwan – one of the crucial males pulled from the mass grave that day.
They display the phobia and chaos of Rifaat’s closing moments, and contradict key components of Israel’s narrative.
“My son was once very exhausted from this struggle,” says Rifaat’s mom, Hajjah. “This will have to no longer were his praise.”
Symbol: Rifaat Radwan, 24, was once killed through Israeli troops whilst on a rescue undertaking. Pic: Fb
Hajjah recollects the instant her son instructed her he sought after to turn into a paramedic.
It was once the evening of his commencement celebration, and all of the visitors had left.
“I wish to do it with a purpose to lend a hand folks,” Rifaat had stated.
Symbol: Rifaat’s mom, Hajjah, says her son most effective sought after to lend a hand folks
She referred to as over Rifaat’s father, Anwar, and Rifaat started through reminding him how, from the age of 5 or 6, he had at all times chased after ambulances on the street.
“That is who Rifaat was once,” says Anwar. “He had very gorgeous ambitions.”
How Rifaat’s closing moments spread out
In a while sooner than 5am, Rifaat departed from PRCS’s Rafah headquarters in an ambulance with fellow paramedic Assad al Nsasrah.
The 2 males, together with every other ambulance following at the back of, have been despatched to seek for 3 colleagues who had disappeared whilst on a rescue undertaking.
By means of matching Rifaat’s movies and their metadata to satellite tv for pc imagery, Sky Information has been in a position to map out the precise course he took.
“They are mendacity there, simply mendacity there,” Assad says, because the ambulance involves a forestall. “Fast! It seems like an coincidence.”
Symbol: The recognized place of the help staff’ automobiles on the time the convoy was once attacked, in accordance with research of Rifaat’s video
Two different males rush out of the hearth engine. Assad pulls the handbrake inside of his ambulance.
3 seconds later, a volley of pictures ring out. Rifaat jumps out of the ambulance, diving for protection through the facet of the street.
For 5-and-a-half mins, Israeli troops proceed to fireplace on the unarmed medics.
As they achieve this, Rifaat recites the Muslim Shahada – a remark of religion regularly stated sooner than dying.
“Mum, forgive me. That is the trail I selected, to lend a hand folks,” Rifaat says in opposition to the top of the video.
“Stand up!” a voice shouts in Hebrew, sooner than the recording unexpectedly ends.
New audio received through Sky Information
Sky Information has received unique new audio which unearths that the capturing didn’t finish there.
The audio, shared through PRCS, displays a 99-second telephone name between the PRCS dispatch centre and Ashraf Abu Labda, one of the crucial paramedics in Saleh Muammar’s ambulance.
Symbol: Ashraf Abu Labda was once one of the crucial paramedics killed on 23 March. Pic: Fb
PRCS instructed us the telephone name was once made at 5.13am, round 5 mins after the assault started and in a while sooner than Rifaat’s name ended.
Sky Information was once no longer in a position to check the audio from the 2 clips, which will have been recorded in several places.
For the primary 33 seconds, Ashraf is heard reciting the Shahada as heavy gunfire continues.
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1:34 A recording from a decision made through paramedic Ashraf Abu Labda to the PRCS dispatch centre all through the assault on 23 March
Unintelligible shouting will also be heard within the background, in addition to the prayers of every other assist employee.
Unexpectedly, the capturing stops and Ashraf falls silent for a number of seconds.
“There may be squaddies, there may be squaddies,” he says because the gunfire resumes. “The military’s at our location.”
Those are his closing recorded phrases.
Sporadic gunfire continues for the rest of the video. Those are interspersed with classes of near-silence, punctuated most effective through unintelligible shouts.
Unexpectedly, Hebrew is audible. “Come!” the voice shouts. “Come, come, come, come!”
The place is Assad al Nsasrah?
Nibal Farsakh, a spokesperson for PRCS, instructed Sky Information Ashraf was once no longer the one paramedic who was once at the telephone with the dispatch centre all through the assault.
The dispatcher was once in a position to effectively name Saleh Muammar as overdue as 5.45am, 37 mins after the assault started, in line with Nibal.
Symbol: Paramedic Saleh Muammar was once alive as overdue as 5.45am, a PRCS spokesman stated. Pic: Fb
The dispatcher reportedly heard heavy gunfire within the background, and Saleh stated he was once injured. His frame was once recovered from the mass grave one week later.
At 5.54am, Nibal says, the dispatch centre controlled to get thru to Assad al Nsasrah – the paramedic who was once sitting subsequent to Rifaat in his ambulance.
Symbol: PRCS paramedic Assad Al Nsasrah was once within the ambulance with Rifaat all through the assault
“He was once scared,” Nibal says. “He was once speaking about his kids – please take care of my kids, please get me out of right here.”
Nibal says the dispatcher stayed at the line with Assad for an hour-and-a-half, calling again every time the sign lower out.
At round 7am, she says, they heard Assad being arrested through the Israelis. At 7.25am, the dispatcher heard the warriors telling Assad to drain his wallet. Fearing the warriors would in finding out he have been recording them, Nibal says, the dispatcher hung up.
It was once no longer till 13 April, 3 weeks after the assault, that Israel showed Assad was once alive and in Israeli detention.
No rationalization has been given for his detention, and the Global Committee of the Pink Pass (ICRC) says Israel has refused to permit it to test on his situation.
Sky Information has no longer been in a position to search out any proof that Assad has hyperlinks to Hamas. We had been in a position to discover a {photograph} of him dressed in a PRCS uniform relationship again so far as 2009.
Symbol: Assad Al Nsasrah pictured in PRCS uniform in a photograph revealed in 2009. Pic: PRCS
The thriller of the UN reliable
Just one sufferer stays with out a identify or a face – that of a UN worker who was once discovered along the 14 assist staff within the mass grave, his car beaten and buried within reach.
Symbol: The beaten stays of a UN car discovered on the web site of the mass grave. Pic: UN
A senior UN reliable, talking on situation of anonymity, instructed Sky Information the person was once a guard shift manager, and that it’s believed he was once attacked whilst travelling from his house to southern Khan Younis to start out his shift.
“We don’t have any explanation why to consider he was once doing anything else except for his activity,” the reliable says.
The UN misplaced touch with him at round 6am, the reliable says, and later won eyewitness reviews that he have been detained, it appears unhurt, through Israeli forces within the house the place the medics have been attacked previous that morning.
His frame was once recovered from the mass grave one week later, on 30 March.
The person’s frame was once buried with out present process a autopsy exam, despite the fact that his circle of relatives have since given permission for the frame to be exhumed for this objective, the reliable stated.
The person who performed the autopsies at the our bodies, Dr Ahmed Dahair, showed to Sky Information he had thus far tested each and every frame excluding that of the UN reliable.
Israel’s seven key claims – and what the proof says
It was once no longer till 31 March, after the closing our bodies have been pulled from the grave, that the Israeli army (IDF) commented at the assault.
A lot of claims made in that remark, and in statements since, have no longer stood as much as scrutiny.
IDF declare: The automobiles had their lighting off
What we all know: The automobiles’ lighting had been on
The IDF’s preliminary remark claimed Israeli troops had opened hearth at the convoy as it was once “advancing suspiciously towards IDF troops with out headlights or emergency indicators”.
The video taken through Rifaat, which emerged on 4 April, disproved this declare, appearing that every one automobiles had their lighting on. The IDF due to this fact retracted the declare, blaming false testimony from the warriors concerned.
The automobiles also are obviously marked within the video with humanitarian symbols, and all staff seem to be in uniform.
The physician who performed the autopsy examinations, Dr Ahmed Dahair, tells Sky Information that “they all had been dressed in their reliable uniforms”.
IDF declare: The automobiles lacked important permissions to shuttle in a fight zone
What we all know: The realm was once no longer declared a fight zone till four-and-a-half hours after the assault
The IDF has additionally justified the verdict to open hearth through announcing the automobiles had been “uncoordinated” – which means their actions weren’t authorized prematurely through the IDF.
Talking to Sky Information, alternatively, senior officers from the UN, PRCS and Civil Defence say coordination was once no longer required since the house had no longer been declared a fight zone.
“It was once a protected house and does no longer require coordination,” says Mohammed Abu Mosahba, director of ambulance and emergency services and products at PRCS.
As Sky Information reported on 3 April, an evacuation order for the realm was once most effective issued at 8.31am, virtually four-and-a-half hours after the primary ambulance was once attacked.
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Israeli forces did behavior a significant operation within the house that morning, however Sky Information discovered no proof that IDF automobiles had been within reach sooner than the assaults happened.
Satellite tv for pc imagery from 10.48am at the day of the incident displays numerous automobiles close to the web site of the assault, and tracks connecting them with a construction 1.1km to the west, indicating that that is the place the automobiles got here from.
A photograph posted through the IDF at 8.25am that morning displays a soldier and a tank at this construction. Alternatively, research of the shadows at the construction signifies the photograph was once taken between 6.30am and seven.00am – smartly after the assaults happened.
Symbol: An Israeli soldier and IDF tank in entrance of an deserted sanatorium in Rafah, 23 March. Pic: IDF
IDF declare: Israeli troops didn’t hearth from a detailed distance
What we all know: Some pictures had been fired from as shut as 12m
In a 5 April briefing to newshounds, the IDF stated there was once “no firing from shut distance” all through the incident, and that that is sponsored up through aerial surveillance photos. The IDF is but to unlock this photos.
Alternatively, as Sky Information printed on 9 April, professional research of the audio in Rifaat’s recording displays one of the pictures fired on the medics got here from as low as 12m away.
Dr Ahmed, the pathologist who performed the autopsy examinations, stated his crew had been not able to resolve whether or not the pictures had been fired from shut vary since the our bodies arrived in an “complicated state of decomposition”.
IDF declare: The sufferers didn’t have their arms or ft tied in combination
What we all know: There is not any proof to indicate the sufferers had been restrained sooner than being killed
Representatives of PRCS and Civil Defence, in addition to a physician who noticed the our bodies, have stated that no less than one sufferer was once discovered with their arms or legs tied in combination – claims that Israel has denied.
Footage shared with Sky Information and different media retailers as proof of this declare do display a black plastic tie round one sufferer’s wrist. Hooked up to the tie is an empty white data card.
The tie seems most effective on one limb, alternatively, and assets at Pink Pass and Civil Defence instructed us that the white tag seems to be of the sort utilized by emergency staff in Gaza to spot our bodies.
Dr Ahmed Dahair instructed Sky Information he noticed “no transparent indicators of bodily restraints” all through the autopsy examinations.
“In a single case, there have been spaces of discolouration across the wrists, which might recommend conceivable binding. Nonetheless, there was once no definitive proof of restraints in the remainder circumstances,” he stated.
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0:27 Dr. Ahmad Dahiar was once a physician who wrote the post-mortem file for the our bodies of the useless paramedics, killed within the assault on 23 March
IDF declare: The automobiles had been beaten by chance as they had been moved off the street
What we all know: The automobiles had been most effective beaten once they have been moved off the street
The IDF has stated the our bodies had been buried so as to offer protection to them from wild animals, and that the automobiles had been beaten inadvertently whilst being moved out of the street. It has no longer defined why the automobiles had been buried.
Symbol: A beaten car on the web site of the help employee assault, 30 March. Pic: UN
Satellite tv for pc imagery from the hours after the assault, alternatively, displays that through 10.48am 5 automobiles had already been moved off to the facet of the street however had no longer but been beaten – immediately contradicting the IDF’s account.
The representation underneath is in accordance with satellite tv for pc imagery noticed through Sky Information.
IDF declare: The convoy integrated ‘Hamas terrorists’
What we all know: There is not any proof any person within the convoy was once a militant
The IDF says “no less than six” of the ones killed had been “Hamas terrorists”, despite the fact that it hasn’t alleged that any had been armed.
No proof has been equipped to give a boost to this declare, and there are not any indications in Rifaat’s video that any of the help staff had been opponents or had ties with Hamas.
War tracking organisation Airwars instructed Sky Information it had carried out an intensive seek of the sufferers’ social media historical past and was once not able to search out any proof linking them to militant teams, despite the fact that it emphasized that on-line data “can most effective ever supply a partial image”.
The IDF has most effective particularly named this kind of alleged Hamas operatives, Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki.
Alternatively, this individual has no longer been named as a sufferer of the assault through the UN, PRCS or Civil Defence.
There is not any publicly to be had proof that he had ties to any of those organisations, or to Hamas, or that he’s useless.
IDF declare: The unique ambulance contained 3 Hamas cops
What we all know: There is not any proof any of those 3 had been militants
The IDF says that every one 3 folks within the unique ambulance, which Rifaat’s crew had been looking for, had been “Hamas police”.
No proof has been equipped for this declare both. Two of the boys, Mustafa Khalaja and Ezz El-Din Shaat, had been killed, whilst one, Munther Abed, was once detained and later launched.
Sky Information reviewed social media profiles, known through Airwars, for the 2 males who had been killed. We discovered no proof that both was once affiliated with Hamas.
Ezz El-Din was once photographed at a sanatorium dressed in a PRCS uniform in October 2023, He was once later pictured in February 2024 lifting an injured individual out of a PRCS ambulance in Rafah.
Symbol: Ezz El Din Shaat lifting anyone out of a PRCS ambulance in Rafah, February 2024. Pic: AP/Hatem Ali
Mustafa, in the meantime, had widely documented his paramedic occupation on-line in pictures relationship again to 2011.
In a single submit, his younger son is pictured on the wheel of a PRCS ambulance. “Mohammed insists on visiting me at paintings and sharing my running hours with sufferers,” he wrote.
Symbol: Mustafa Khalaja posing along with his son in a PRCS ambulance, June 2016. Pic: Fb
Eyewitness account backs up Sky’s findings
Of all of the assist staff provide that day, just one has been in a position to inform their facet of the tale.
Talking to Sky Information, Munther Abed, 27, stated he have been within the first ambulance attacked that day – the one who Rifaat’s convoy had been on the lookout for.
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0:38 Munther Abed was once within the ambulance Rifaat and his colleagues had been looking for
Munther denies having any connection to Hamas, telling Sky Information that he was once most effective launched after the Israeli army showed he had no militant ties.
His tale started at 3.52am, when his ambulance was once despatched south to the web site of a reported Israeli assault. 4 mins later, the dispatch centre misplaced touch with them.
Munther was once at the back of the ambulance once they had been hit through what he describes as “heavy gunfire”. He straight away dropped to the ground.
“I didn’t listen a phrase from my two colleagues,” he says. “I most effective heard their ultimate breaths, their throes of dying.”
A number of squaddies dragged him from the car, he says, and he was once stripped, crushed and positioned at the back of a wall.
At 4.39am, Saleh Muammar’s ambulance was once despatched out to seek for the lacking crew. Onboard was once Ashraf Abu Labda and every other medic, Raed al Sharif.
Symbol: Saleh Muammar (left), Ashraf Abu Labda (centre) and Raed al Sharif had been travelling in combination. Pics: Fb
At 4.53am, they noticed Munthar’s ambulance through the facet of the street. Two extra ambulances, together with Rifaat’s, had been temporarily despatched to enroll in the hunt.
At 5.02am, Rifaat runs into Saleh, and asks if he is aware of the place Munthar’s ambulance is. Saleh tells him it is again the best way he got here. They name for backup from Civil Defence, and head in opposition to the scene of the assault.
At 5.08am, the hunt convoy arrived. Then the capturing started.
“I used to be most effective in a position to peer the purple lighting flickering of the automobiles, and was once in a position to listen to the sound of sirens [and] gunfire,” Munther says.
All the way through his interrogation, the Israeli squaddies requested Munther why he was once provide all through an army operation. He instructed them he wasn’t conscious about this kind of operation.
It was once most effective after dawn, he says, when heavy equipment and tanks started to reach, that combating within the house started.
“It took place abruptly,” Munther says. “They did not throw leaflets to tell the population to evacuate Rafah, nor did they are saying at the information.
“No, Rafah was once absolutely populated. It was once no longer a purple zone or a combating zone as they claimed.”
His account is in step with Sky’s open-source research above, which discovered no proof for any army operation on the time and placement of the assault.
Munther says he witnessed the crushing of the automobiles along with his personal eyes, corroborating Sky’s discovering that the automobiles had been beaten most effective after being moved to the facet of the street.
After the heavy equipment arrived at break of day, Munther says, the Israelis dug a big hollow on one facet of the street and a number of other smaller holes at the different facet.
“Within the huge hollow, they put all of the ambulances and the Civil Defence automobiles,” he says. “The heavy equipment climbed over all of the automobiles… then they buried them with some earth.”
Munther’s tale
Munther instructed Sky Information that he had additionally been badly mistreated in Israeli detention.
“The torture took other colors,” Munther says. “They launched canines to assault us once we had been in holes, shifting from one hollow to every other. They had been hitting and tormenting me.”
All the way through one interrogation, Munther says, a soldier positioned his weapon on his neck.
“Any other soldier positioned a bayonet on my wrist. If he had pressed a little extra he would have lower my veins.”
Munther says that Assad was once detained along him at the day of the assault.
“He was once accompanied through an Israeli officer, and was once crushed sooner than being positioned subsequent to me,” Munther says.
In opposition to the top of his detention, Munther says, he was once compelled to behave a “human defend” through transmitting messages between the troops and the crowds of folks fleeing Rafah.
After acting this activity, he was once given again his cell phone and launched.
‘All of it issues to a cover-up’
“This seems like a dreadful struggle crime,” says Sir Geoffrey Great KC, who served as lead prosecutor within the genocide trial of former Serbian chief Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague.
“The [use] of a bulldozer to bury the our bodies of the 15 folks and their automobiles and the trade of reliable accounts given through Israel all… issues to a cover-up.”
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1:48 ‘Dreadful struggle crime’
Satellite tv for pc imagery displays that Israeli forces moved temporarily to limit get right of entry to to the scene of the assault.
Inside of 5 hours, the IDF had arrange street blocks north and south of the web site.
Symbol: Place of IDF roadblocks erected inside of hours of the assault, in accordance with satellite tv for pc imagery noticed through Sky Information
Talking to Sky Information, former Israeli high minister Ehud Olmert stated: “The best way it is been described within the first position, the unique response through the Israeli military, the then next corrections made, all issues to one thing very, very nerve-racking.”
Sky’s Alex Crawford requested Olmert whether or not the proof pointed to a cover-up. “I do not know, however I do not really feel relaxed,” he stated.
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0:30 Ex-Israeli PM Ehud Olmert says proof issues to one thing ‘very nerve-racking’
In an interview with Sky’s Mark Austin on 8 April, Israeli govt spokesman David Mencer stated the IDF’s investigation can be revealed “very, very in a while”.
“We’ve not anything to cover in any way,” he stated.
In a remark to Sky Information, the IDF stated it’s “accomplishing an inquiry into the incident, which happened in a fight zone, to discover the reality”.
“The initial inquiry indicated that the troops opened hearth because of a perceived risk following a prior stumble upon within the house, and that six of the folks killed within the incident had been known as Hamas terrorists. All of the claims raised in regards to the incident will likely be tested in the course of the mechanism and offered in an in depth and thorough approach for a call on easy methods to deal with the development.”
Who’s accountable?
The IDF has no longer launched main points of the warriors concerned, however it has stated they belong to the elite Golani brigade.
The video underneath, which emerged on 4 April, displays a Golani Patrol Commander talking to his troops.
“Everybody you stumble upon is an enemy,” he tells them. “For those who spot a determine, open hearth, get rid of, and transfer on.”
Geoffrey Great says that felony culpability for the killing of the 15 assist staff may just relaxation with the warriors concerned, or with folks upper up the command chain.
“You do not do on the backside what you concern might not be supported through folks on the most sensible,” he says. “Why would you? The chance is just too nice.”
When she heard that there have been an Israeli operation in a single day in Rafah, Rifaat’s mom Hajjah wasn’t anxious – she had religion that her son’s standing as a humanitarian employee would give protection to him.
Her major worry was once whether or not, all through all of the inevitable call-outs, he would have time to consume or drink.
“We didn’t concern for his protection in any respect.”
Further reporting through Olive Enokido-Lineham, OSINT manufacturer, Mary Poynter, manufacturer, and Adam Parker, OSINT editor.
The Knowledge and Forensics crew is a multi-skilled unit devoted to offering clear journalism from Sky Information. We accumulate, analyse and visualise information to inform data-driven tales. We mix conventional reporting abilities with complicated research of satellite tv for pc photographs, social media and different open-source data. Via multimedia storytelling we goal to higher give an explanation for the arena whilst additionally appearing how our journalism is completed.
