In the last minutes before dawn, seven emergency response vehicles travel through Al-Hashashin, north of Rafah in Gaza. They’ve been called out to recover and treat casualties from Israeli fire overnight. The convoy stops and pulls over, its personnel get out to begin their work: “It looks like an accident”, one man says, as they reach the site of Israel’s overnight attack.
Within minutes, without warning, they are under fire. Shots from distance by Israeli troops kill some convoy members immediately. Others are found by approaching troops. They are then bound and later executed. Two paramedics are abducted from the scene and taken into detention.
Rifatt Radwan, of the Red Crescent, recorded his last moments before his execution by the Israeli troops. "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger. Forgive me, mother, because I chose this way, the way of helping people. Accept my martyrdom, God, and forgive me."
Fifteen paramedics and emergency personnel were killed during the massacre, including Palestine Red Crescent medics Mostafa Khufaga, Saleh Muamer and Ezzedine Shaath, first responder volunteers Mohammad Bahloul, Mohammed al-Heila, Ashraf Abu Labda, Raed al-Sharif and Rifatt Radwan.
Civil Defence Head of Mission Anwar Al-Attar was killed alongside his team members Fouad Al-Jammal, Yousef Khalifa, Zuheir Al-Farra, Sameer Al-Bahabsah, and Ibrahim Al-Mughari, as was one worker from the UN Relief and Works Agency.
In Gaza, Israel mark medics for murder
Their bodies were found four days after their killing, buried in a shallow grave along with their destroyed vehicles. Rifatt’s phone, and its recording of the team’s last moments, was found on his body. There were only two survivors, paramedic Munther Abed and ambulance driver Assad al-Nasasra, both of whom were beaten and detained – Assad for over five weeks.
The martyrs of the aid worker convoy massacre join over a thousand other healthcare and humanitarian workers killed by Israel in Gaza. These workers were killed in a deliberate nature: an ambush was set for them, in which they were trapped, before being executed and buried.
It took numerous days before a UN-led mission was able to find their bodies. Many other healthcare and aid workers have not been extended this ritual – they have been blown apart by American-made bombs, or sniped and left dead on the streets. Many hundreds more have been abducted. For some, including my friend Dr Adnan Al-Bursh, they have been killed by the torture inflicted upon them during their kidnapping.
Regardless of method, the effect of their killing is the same: Palestinians are deprived of those with the means and the expertise of saving lives. In murdering individual doctors or launching a total war on healthcare in Gaza, Israel intends to deprive Palestinians of the means of their survival.
These acts of genocide intend to erase Palestinian life and the evidence of its existence. Gaza’s hospitals, some of them older than the State of Israel itself, were filled with world-leading Palestinian healthcare specialists. Despite the siege, this system was built to the highest degree of excellence in care. These hospitals, despite the war against them, continue to treat and rehabilitate those whom Israel has attempted to murder.
But it matters, too, to see how these fifteen were killed, and the public display of their deaths. The occupying military knew that vehicles would be found. Their bodies were buried shallowly – the Israelis not even bothering to remove the hand-ties, which show that they were executed.
Their deaths and the manner of their killing serve as a spectacle, to show how little Israel cares for even its most liberal, soft-handed critics. They know that the lies spun about the incident – of ‘suspicious vehicles’ and ‘Hamas operatives’ – would not hold water, but that is not their purpose.
A UN Commission identifies that the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system amounts to a crime of extermination. The International Criminal Court indicts Israel’s leaders for depriving Palestinians of their right to health. The UK government calls for Israel to ‘adhere to international law’ – this massacre happens not in spite of but because of these developments.
To maintain its occupation, Israel needs to show that it does not care for its liberal critics or the language of humanitarianism they use. By making the display of their disregard for international law, for human decency, the occupier deprives its critics of the logic of their appeals for restraint.
The worse the atrocities, the less believable their excuses, the stronger their hand. Israel’s soft-handed critics in the UK, EU, and UN have not yet come to understand what genocide, extermination, military occupation, and settler colonialism mean. When they do, they will understand why these healthcare workers in Gaza were made to die in the way that they did.
Professor Ghassan Abu-Sittah is a renowned, multi-award-winning Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon, internationally recognised as a leading expert in craniofacial surgery (facial deformities), aesthetic surgery, cleft lip and palate repair, and trauma-related injuries. A dedicated humanitarian, he has served as a war surgeon in several conflict zones, including Syria, Yemen, Iraq, South Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip.
Of British Palestinian heritage, he is the Clinical Lead for the Operational Trauma Initiative at the World Health Organisation’s EMRO Office and Professor of Conflict Medicine at the American University of Beirut. He also sits on the board of directors of INARA, a charity that provides reconstructive surgery to children injured by war in the Middle East.
Follow Ghassan on X: @GhassanAbuSitt1
Have questions or comments? Email us at: editorial-english@newarab.com
Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.