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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">The first responders massacre: 14 aid workers found dead and buried, hands bound</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Tareq S. Hajjaj</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">March 31, 2025</div>
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<img src="cid:ii_m8x6cg3b0" alt="280325_Khan_Yunis_DB_007-1024x768.jpg" width="394" height="296"><br>
<font size="1">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)
</font><br><p>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.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>“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 <em>Mondoweiss</em>. “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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Anwar has three daughters, the youngest of whom is four,” his wife says.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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 <em>Mondoweiss</em>.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>At the funeral of al-Attar last week, Civil Defense members bidding
farewell to their fallen colleague with tears in their eyes told <em>Mondoweiss </em>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. </p>
<p>“Anwar’s vest and helmet, which mark him as a Civil Defence Worker, were punctured by over 20 bullet holes,” Ashour told <em>Mondoweiss</em>. “He was shot in the head and chest, and in the lower part of his body. He was brutally murdered.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“The ambulance and fire crews were directly targeted,” Ashour added,
saying that al-Attar and his colleagues were “executed in the field.”</p>
<img width="394" height="296" src="https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/280325_Khan_Yunis_DB_0023-1024x768.jpg" alt="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)" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;">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)
<h2><strong>How the massacre of first responders unfolded</strong></h2>
<p>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. </p>
<p>Several survivors who managed to leave the area repeated these claims to <em>Mondoweiss</em>, but <em>Mondoweiss </em>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.</p>
<p>Marwan al-Hams, director of field hospitals in Gaza, told <em>Mondoweiss </em>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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 <em>Mondoweiss</em>. “Over several days, we attempted to coordinate, but the occupation categorically refused.”</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>“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.” </p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Civil Defense and Red Crescent crews enjoy international immunity and
are protected by international humanitarian law, Basal points out. </p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>An Israeli army <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20250329-israel-admits-firing-ambulance-gaza-strip-palestine-red-crescent-rescue-hamas-war-crime">statement to AFP</a>
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.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
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