Israeli forces are under intense pressure to explain the deaths of 15 emergency workers who were killed during a callout in Gaza. ITV News has now obtained footage from the team who recovered their bodies, as Senior International Correspondent John Irvine reports.
This video and article contain material that some may find distressing.
Israeli forces are under intense pressure to explain the deaths, ten days ago, of 15 emergency workers who were killed during a callout in their Red Crescent ambulances in Gaza - after accusations some may have been executed.
The bodies have only been recovered recently. Colleagues who retrieved them believe some had had their hands and even their feet bound before they were killed.
One survivor, a paramedic, has contradicted Israeli claims that the ambulances came towards the soldiers with their lights off and no identification.
The bodies of the men and the remains of their vehicles stayed buried and untouched for a week because it took that long for the IDF to allow a recovery operation to take place.
ITV News has now obtained footage in which one of the recovery team claims to have found evidence that the dead man he’s helping to dig out had been tied up before being killed.
“This is a civil defence member. His legs were tied. I just untied his legs. This is an execution,” he said.
The retrieval team claim that later, in hospital, they took these photographs which appear to show bindings on a victim’s wrist.
Photographs that the recovery team say were taken in hospital where the emergency workers' bodies were taken. Credit: ITV News
We have also interviewed Dr Ahmed al-Farra, a doctor who examined three of the bodies at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza.
"They were tightened, both hands, and we could see the kind of tight that it was," he told us. "Tightly, tightly, their hands. Not their legs, their hands. Just their hands were tied."
Dr Ahmed al-Farra, a doctor who examined three of the bodies at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza. Credit: ITV News
Eight of the 15 killed were paramedics. We spoke to one of their colleagues who survived the massacre.
Paramedic Munther Abed was in an ambulance dispatched from a field hospital run by a British charity.
He said he was "the assistant paramedic, sitting in the back" of the ambulance.
"When the shooting started, I lay down to take cover," he said. "I didn't hear a word from my colleagues, only their last breaths.
"Suddenly, all the lights in the vehicles went off. I heard talking in Hebrew, and the side door opened.
"They were special forces, in military uniforms, carrying weapons, and wearing night-vision goggles. Their weapons had green lasers."
Munther Abed, an assistant paramedic, was in an ambulance dispatched from a field hospital run by a British charity. Credit: ITV News
The Israelis claim they opened fire on the emergency vehicles because they were advancing suspiciously and had their headlights and flashing lights switched off.
"That's not true," Munther said.
"Under any circumstances, whether it is just moving a sick person, whatever it is, we turn on the siren lights and inside and outside lights, and we turn on the siren. Everything is clearly visible."
There has been no IDF response to the claims in this report, beyond confirmation that they are "checking".
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