8 d. ago Postmortems of rescue workers killed in Gaza show ‘gunshots to head and torso’

Findings likely to increase pressure on Israel to give a full account of incident amid accusations of war crimeThe Gaza paramedic killings: a visual timelineThe doctor who carried out the postmortems of the 15 paramedics and rescue workers who were killed by Israeli troops in Gaza in March has said they were mostly killed by gunshots to the head and torso, as well as injuries caused by explosives.There was international outcry last month after it emerged that Israeli troops had launched a deadly attack on a group of paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent, civil defence and United Nations workers, as they carried out a rescue operation in southern Gaza. Continue reading...

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8 d. ago Autopsies of rescue workers killed in Gaza show ‘gunshots to head and torso’

Findings likely to increase pressure on Israel to give a full account of incident amid accusations of war crimeThe Gaza paramedic killings: a visual timelineThe doctor who carried out the autopsies of the 15 paramedics and rescue workers who were killed by Israeli troops in Gaza in March has said they were mostly killed by gunshots to the head and torso, as well as injuries caused by explosives.There was international outcry last month after it emerged that Israeli troops had launched a deadly attack on a group of paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent, civil defence and United Nations workers, as they carried out a rescue operation in southern Gaza. Continue reading...

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9 d. ago Hamas blames Israeli strike after ‘losing contact’ with American hostage Edan Alexander

Palestinian group claims Israel is ‘deliberately trying to kill’ captive soldier

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1 week ago IDF unit involved in killing of Palestinian paramedics led by general with ‘contempt for human life’

Golani troops were under command of reservist Armoured 14th Brigade, part of division led by Brig Gen Yehuda VachThe Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit involved in the killings of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in the Gaza Strip last month was under the command of a brigade led by a notorious Israeli general previously accused by some of his own troops of having “contempt for human life”.The IDF has confirmed that troops from Golani, one of the army’s five infantry brigades, opened fire on two convoys of ambulances in Rafah on 23 March and dug a mass grave to cover the bodies of those killed until the corpses could be retrieved by a UN team six days later. It has disputed allegations from two witnesses who exhumed the bodies and newly released postmortem results that found several of those killed had close-range gunshot wounds to the head and chest and were discovered with their hands or legs tied. Continue reading...

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1 week ago IDF unit involved in Gaza paramedics’ killing was under command of brigade led by notorious Israeli general

Golani troops were under command of reservist Armoured 14th Brigade, part of division led by Brig Gen Yehuda VachThe Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit involved in the killings of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in the Gaza Strip last month was under the command of a brigade led by a notorious Israeli general previously accused by some of his own troops of having “contempt for human life”.The IDF has confirmed that troops from Golani, one of the army’s five infantry brigades, opened fire on two convoys of ambulances in Rafah on 23 March and dug a mass grave to cover the bodies of those killed until the corpses could be retrieved by a UN team six days later. It has disputed allegations from two witnesses who exhumed the bodies and newly released postmortem results that found several of those killed had close-range gunshot wounds to the head and chest and were discovered with their hands or legs tied. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Gaza medic deaths just the latest in Israel’s long history of changing its story over civilian killings

After 15 Palestinian medics and civil defence workers were killed by Israeli forces late last month, Israel began a familiar pattern of denialThe Israel Defense Forces’ changing account of its killing of 15 Palestinian medics and civil defence workers is part of a long familiar pattern in high profile cases involving the killing of civilians.Often, at first, the IDF denies involvement. Sometimes – in the context of Gaza – it suggests one of Hamas’s own rockets fell short, causing the casualties. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Phone footage appears to contradict Israel's account in troops' killing of 15 Palestinian medics

A video on the phone of one of 15 Palestinian medics killed by Israeli forces in Gaza shows that their emergency vehicles had their lights and sirens flashing and their logos clearly visible when they came under a barrage of gunfire from troops lasting more than five minutes

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2 w. ago Phone footage appears to contradict Israeli account of killing of Gaza medics

Israel says soldiers fired on ‘terrorists’ in ‘suspicious vehicles’ but footage shows clearly marked ambulancesMobile phone footage of the last moments of some of the 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers killed by Israeli forces in an incident in Gaza last month appears to contradict the version of events put forward by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).The almost seven-minute video, which the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Saturday was recovered from the phone of Rifat Radwan, one of the men killed, appears to have been filmed from inside a moving vehicle. It shows a red fire engine and clearly marked ambulances driving at night, using headlights and flashing emergency lights. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Phone footage appears to contradict Israeli account of killing of Gaza paramedics

Israel says soldiers fired on ‘terrorists’ in ‘suspicious vehicles’ but footage shows clearly marked ambulances using flashing emergency lightsMobile phone footage of the last moments of some of the 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers killed by Israeli forces in an incident in Gaza last month appears to contradict the version of events put forward by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).The five-minute video, which the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said on Saturday was recovered from the phone of one of the men killed, appears to have been filmed from inside a moving vehicle, and shows a red fire engine and clearly marked ambulances driving at night, using headlights and flashing emergency lights. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago ‘What was their crime?’ Families tell of shock over IDF killing of Gaza paramedics

Relatives who waited agonising week before bodies were found speak of passion that drove Red Crescent workers• Our aid workers were brutally killed and thrown into a mass grave in Gaza. This must never happen againGaza is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a civilian now that Israeli forces have resumed their military campaign with even more ferocity, but for the first responders who rush towards the wreckage of bombed buildings, the risks are multiplied many times over.The 15 paramedics and rescue workers whose bodies were found last weekend in a bulldozed pit outside Rafah knew they were putting their lives in peril to try to save others, but they could not have been prepared for what awaited them in the early hours of 23 March. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago The Guardian view on Israel’s killing of paramedics: a new atrocity in an unending conflict | Editorial

Impunity over Palestinian deaths in Gaza will lead to further cases like this massacre of rescue and healthcare workersAfter 18 months of slaughter, it is still possible to be shocked by events in Gaza. More than 50,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities. More are starving because Israel has cut off aid. The offensive is intensifying again – with 100 children killed or maimed each day since Israel resumed heavy strikes last month, the UN reports.Even so, Israel’s killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers is particularly chilling. Though they died on 23 March, it took days for Israel to grant access to the site, the UN said. Another man was last seen in Israeli custody. Two grounds for seeing this not only as tragic but as a war crime stand out. The first is that the UN says the men were shot “one by one”, and a forensic expert said that preliminary evidence “suggests they were executed, not from a distant range”, given the “specific an...

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3 w. ago ‘I heard them take their last breath’: survivor recounts Gaza paramedic killings

Munther Abed, 27, was in the first ambulance on the scene of an airstrike near Rafah when Israeli soldiers opened fire• Gaza paramedic killings: a visual timelineA survivor from a massacre of Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in Gaza has said he saw Israeli troops open fire on a succession of Red Crescent ambulances and rescue vehicles and then use a bulldozer to bury the wreckage in a pit.Munther Abed, a 27-year-old Red Crescent volunteer, was in the back of the first ambulance to arrive on the scene of an airstrike in the Hashashin district of Rafah before dawn on 23 March, when it came under intense Israeli fire. His two Red Crescent colleagues sitting in the front were killed but he survived by throwing himself to the floor of the vehicle. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago Israel executes unarmed Red Crescent paramedics with the west’s blessing | Ahmed Moor

American and European leaders are the authors of this latest atrocity by their Israeli colleagues in GazaThe Guardian reports that Israeli troops “killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by one”. “One by one” is another way of saying one person after another, which is another way of saying premeditated murder. Fifteen times over.Dr Bashar Murad, the director of health programs at the Palestine Red Crescent, told reporters that one of the men who was executed by the Israelis was on the phone with colleagues. The victim had been injured and was requesting help. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago Palestinian paramedics shot by Israeli forces had hands tied, eyewitnesses say

Senior doctor who saw bodies says men appeared to have been ‘executed’, adding to evidence of potential war crimeSome of the bodies of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave nine days ago in Gaza, were found with their hands or legs tied and had gunshot wounds to the head and chest, according to two eyewitnesses.The eyewitness accounts add to an accumulating body of evidence pointing to a potentially serious war crime on 23 March, when Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance crews and civil defence rescue workers were sent to the scene of an airstrike in the early hours of the morning in the al-Hashashin district of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Israel killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by one, says UN

Workers on a mission to help colleagues were buried in mass grave in southern Gaza, says humanitarian officeFifteen Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including at least one United Nations employee, were killed by Israeli forces “one by one” and buried in a mass grave eight days ago in southern Gaza, the UN has said.According to the UN humanitarian affairs office (Ocha), the Palestinian Red Crescent and civil defence workers were on a mission to rescue colleagues who had been shot at earlier in the day, when their clearly marked vehicles came under heavy Israeli fire in Rafah city’s Tel al-Sultan. A Red Crescent official in Gaza said that there was evidence of at least one person being detained and killed, as the body of one of the dead had been found with his hands tied. Continue reading...

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last month Middle East crisis live: Netanyahu repeats threat to seize parts of Gaza if Hamas does not release hostages

Israeli PM says he will take ‘more powerful repression’ if Hamas does not release remaining hostagesFull story: Hundreds join Hamas protest in GazaHere are some of the latest images coming in via the newswires:The Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday that at least 830 people had been killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel resumed large-scale strikes on 18 March, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). Continue reading...

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