[News] The first responders massacre: 14 aid workers found dead and buried, hands bound

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/03/the-first-responders-massacre-14-aid-workers-found-dead-and-buried-hands-bound/?ml_recipient=150389379132557260&ml_link=150389333965145497&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-03-31&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
The first responders massacre: 14 aid workers found dead and buried, hands
bound
Tareq S. Hajjaj
March 31, 2025
------------------------------
[image: 280325_Khan_Yunis_DB_007-1024x768.jpg]
Palestinian Civil Defense members mourn their colleague Anwar al-Attar
during his funeral at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza,
March 28, 2025. (Photo: Doaa el-Baz/APA Images)

At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Taghreed al-Attar sits next to her
husband’s body, which was discovered last Friday in Rafah. Her husband,
Anwar al-Attar, left with fellow first responders to Rafah the previous
week, but no one returned.

His wife says that when they lost contact with him, people told her he had
been imprisoned by the Israeli army. But she says he came to her in a
dream, and she saw him in paradise surrounded by rivers and fruit. She
couldn’t believe he was a prisoner.

“He never missed work for a moment since the war began. He was injured
three times, and everyone asked him to stop working and take a rest,”
Taghreed says in a video testimony to *Mondoweiss*. “But he always said he
needed to be a role model for his colleagues and would never stop working
and providing services to his people. He risked his life, entering the
rubble and extracting martyrs. I am proud of him and hope our children will
be like him.”

She notes that he always talked to her about the dangers he faced,
sometimes telling her that quadcopter drones always chased after them and
sometimes fired on them. She would ask him if he was scared, and he would
tell her that God was with him.

“Anwar has three daughters, the youngest of whom is four,” his wife says.

Al-Attar had been dispatched with his Civil Defense colleagues last week on
a mission to rescue a team of paramedics with the Palestinian Red Crescent
Society (PRCS) who had gone missing, only to have contact with him and the
rescue team severed as well.

Anwar’s body was found buried in the sand a few days later. This was the
first sign of evidence that the Israeli army had targeted Civil Defense and
PRCS crews in Rafah, a Civil Defense spokesperson told *Mondoweiss*.

A few days after finding the body of al-Attar, Civil Defense teams that had
been digging in the area after being granted permission by the Israeli army
found 14 dead bodies.

The Gaza Ministry of Health said in a statement on March 30 that the bodies
belonged to 8 paramedics from PRCS, 5 members of the Civil Defense, and one
person whose identity remains unknown. The statement said that the crews
had been “executed” and “some were found with their hands bound.”

The Ministry added that the bodies of the first responder teams showed
signs of being deliberately targeted. “Some of them were shot in the head
and chest, and they were buried in deep holes to prevent them from being
found,” the Ministry said.

At the funeral of al-Attar last week, Civil Defense members bidding
farewell to their fallen colleague with tears in their eyes told *Mondoweiss
*via video testimony about al-Attar’s dedication to his work. “He was
carrying out humanitarian work throughout the war, and his mission was to
retrieve the wounded and the martyrs from the rubble,” said Abdul Rahman
Ashour, one of the Civil Defense members who recovered al-Attar’s body from
Rafah.

“Anwar’s vest and helmet, which mark him as a Civil Defence Worker, were
punctured by over 20 bullet holes,” Ashour told *Mondoweiss*. “He was shot
in the head and chest, and in the lower part of his body. He was brutally
murdered.”

The PRCS ambulance that had been sent to Rafah to answer distress calls had
caught fire after being fired upon by the Israeli army, Ashour said. That
was when al-Attar and his crew were dispatched, leaving with a fire engine
and another ambulance in tow.

“The ambulance and fire crews were directly targeted,” Ashour added, saying
that al-Attar and his colleagues were “executed in the field.”
[image: Palestinian Civil Defense members mourn their colleague Anwar
al-Attar during his funeral at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis,
southern Gaza, March 28, 2025. (Photo: Doaa el-Baz/APA Images)]Palestinian
Civil Defense members mourn their colleague Anwar al-Attar during his
funeral at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, March 28,
2025. (Photo: Doaa el-Baz/APA Images) *How the massacre of first responders
unfolded*

Over the past week, the Israeli army raided various areas in the Gaza
Strip, including the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah, specifically an
area to the west part commonly known as “al-Baraksat.” During the first
days of the raid, residents shared horrific stories of mass executions,
young men being rounded up in ditches and shot at point-blank range, and
children being killed in front of their mothers.

Several survivors who managed to leave the area repeated these claims to
*Mondoweiss*, but *Mondoweiss *was unable to verify them at the time given
that no first responders were allowed to reach the area as a result of the
tight blockade imposed by the Israeli army. Since then, more and more
testimonies have emerged from survivors and first responders who came from
the area.

Marwan al-Hams, director of field hospitals in Gaza, told *Mondoweiss *via
video testimony that they had been receiving reports of “many bodies and
body parts” being found in Rafah. “They are the remains of a group of
martyrs,” he said. “People tried to retrieve them but were unable to. They
just covered them with sand to keep them from being eaten by stray dogs.”

It was in this context that civilians trapped in Tal al-Sultan sent out
distress calls to the PRCS and Civil Defense in the Rafah area last week.
Two vehicles were dispatched, and when they disappeared, the two vehicles
led by Anwar al-Attar went after them.

The fate of all the crews remained unknown for over a week. During this
period, the PRCS and Civil Defense attempted to obtain coordination
permission from the Israeli army to enter Rafah to search for their missing
colleagues.

Mahmoud Basal, a Civil Defense spokesperson in the Gaza Strip, recounts
that as soon as Attar’s team had arrived in Rafah, the Israeli army closed
the entrances and exits to Rafah, effectively besieging the first
responders. That was when communications were lost, Basal says.

“We demanded that international organizations and the international
community help us to coordinate with the occupation to be allowed entry
into the area, so we could know the fate of our crews,” Basal tells
*Mondoweiss*. “Over several days, we attempted to coordinate, but the
occupation categorically refused.”

After numerous requests, the Civil Defense, the Red Crescent, and the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) obtained
coordination from the occupation on March 27.

“We entered Rafah after much suffering, only to be surprised by the scale
of the massacre that had taken place there,” Basal says. “The occupation
forces opened heavy fire on Red Crescent and Civil Defense vehicles.
Israeli bulldozers even placed sand barriers over the area [where they were
buried], completely altering its features.”

“All indications at the scene show that the Israeli occupation forces
executed the medical crews,” Basal continues, adding that during search
efforts on March 27, the teams identified the body of Anwar al-Attar. “We
tried to locate the others, but darkness fell and prevented us from
completing the search.”

Three days later, the Civil Defense teams found the rest of the missing
crews — 14 people found buried, some with their hands bound and showing
signs of being shot in the head and chest.

Civil Defense and Red Crescent crews enjoy international immunity and are
protected by international humanitarian law, Basal points out.

“But unfortunately, the occupation has clear experience with killings. We
are talking about 105 civil defense martyrs, all of whom had immunity, but
the occupation killed them,” Basal says. “This demonstrates that the
occupation has no red lines and does not abide by international or
humanitarian law.”

An Israeli army statement to AFP
<https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20250329-israel-admits-firing-ambulance-gaza-strip-palestine-red-crescent-rescue-hamas-war-crime>
said that “a few minutes” after soldiers “eliminated several Hamas
terrorists” by opening fire on their vehicles, “additional vehicles
advanced suspiciously toward the troops.” The statement added that the army
had shot “toward the suspicious vehicles, eliminating a number of Hamas and
Islamic Jihad terrorists.”

The army admitted that an initial inquiry revealed that “some” of the
vehicles were ambulances and fire trucks, adding that the army condemns the
use of such vehicles by “terrorist organizations” for “terrorist purposes.”

Mahmoud Basal denies these allegations, saying that the occupation wanted
to cover up the crime by claiming that they were fighters from Hamas and
Islamic Jihad. He says that the Civil Defense holds the Israeli occupation
fully responsible for killing the crews, violating international
humanitarian law, and committing a massacre against medical personnel and
first responders, who are distinguished by their orange vests.

“This vest is coordinated with the Israeli occupation,” Basal says. “The
entry operation [of the rescue teams into Rafah] was clear, but the
occupation committed the massacre and now wants to escape embarrassment.”

“What happened to our crews is a full-fledged massacre and a crime for
which the occupation must be held accountable by the free world and
humanitarian organizations,” Basal added. “This has serious repercussions,
and the world must realize that what happened in Gaza is a flagrant
violation of international humanitarian law.”
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20250331/488ea08c/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 280325_Khan_Yunis_DB_007-1024x768.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 184459 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20250331/488ea08c/attachment-0001.jpg>