Account from Israeli newspaper Haaretz
April ( without links or photos).
Terrible things happened last week on the road to Tel al-Sultan, a neighbourhood in the Gazan town of Rafah. What we know so far is that a Red Crescent ambulance was summoned to the area to evacuate the casualties of an Israeli attack. The ambulance crew that arrived first asked that a second ambulance be sent. But the second ambulance never reached its destination, and the same was true of several rescue crews sent out after it.
For five days, there was no information about what had become of them. Only on Sunday did the army allow rescue crews from the United Nations and the Red Crescent to go there. They found a giant pile of sand in which parts of crushed, destroyed vehicles were visible. Ultimately, they found five ambulances in it, as well as a fire truck and UN vehicles. In another location to which someone in the Israel Defense Forces referred them, they dug and found the bodies of the 15 rescue workers – eight employees of the Palestinian Red Crescent, six employees of Gaza's civil defense agency and one UN worker.
Palestinian sources said that the bodies were found outside their vehicles. Some had their hands or legs tied, and there were indications that they had been shot from close range. In at least one case, someone who was there confirmed to Haaretz that the body's legs were tied. And if all this weren't enough, while they were on their way to the site, UN workers saw hundreds of people fleeing the area under fire. They said they saw one woman shot in the back of her head, and a young man who tried to help her was also shot.
The IDF confirmed that the vehicles were shot at, but claimed it was because they looked suspicious. It also said the shooting killed a known operative of Hamas' military wing along with eight other people active in either Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
But this IDF response is inadequate, especially given the army's permissive rules of engagement in the Gaza Strip and the fact that officers in the field ignore international law and even Israeli law. The 15 rescue workers killed in Tel al-Sultan join the over 1,000 medical workers, rescue workers and civil defense personnel who have been killed since the war began.
To date, more than 50,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry. On Wednesday, April 2, it will be one month since Israel closed all the border crossings to Gaza. Since then, no food or aid of any kind has entered. The threat of starvation and a humanitarian crisis is once again hovering over Gaza's 2 million inhabitants. The IDF must provide clear answers regarding what happened to the ambulances and their crews. In addition, the chief of staff and other senior officers must make an effort to prevent harm to innocents and medical workers and reduce the suffering of the innocent people in Gaza.
Even though this government would like the war to continue forever, it will end someday. And on that day, the IDF and Israeli society as a whole will be forced to look in the mirror and deal with the knowledge that these atrocities were committed in our name.