New evidence has come to light that exposes the official Israeli military explanation for the deaths of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in Rafah on the morning of March 23 as a pack of lies.

The examination of the bodies of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), the Palestine Civil Defense and UN employees by a forensic doctor—along with a video found on the smartphone of one of the ambulance and relief team members—establishes that the 15 aid workers were killed by Israeli forces at close range.

As they have done throughout the 18-month-long genocide in Gaza, in which more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, the Israeli military concocted the lie that their troops fired on unmarked vehicles at night, suspecting them to be transporting Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants.

It has been known since at least March 30, when the remains of the aid workers were recovered from a mass grave, that their dead bodies and ambulances were gathered, buried and then plowed over by Israeli military bulldozers to cover up what had happened at the crime scene.

Forensic analyst Ahmad Dhaher, who personally examined five of the bodies at Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, told the Guardian:

Preliminary analysis suggests they were executed, not from a distant range, since the locations of the bullet wounds were specific and intentional.

Dhaher also said:

One observation is that the bullets were aimed at one person’s head, another at their heart and a third person had been shot with six or seven bullets in the torso.

Although he cautioned that the state of decomposition made it difficult to draw definitive conclusions, when placed within the context of other evidence and the ongoing deliberate and persistent targeting by the Zionist regime of Palestinian medical and rescue teams, there is no doubt that the aid workers were ambushed and killed execution-style.

Meanwhile, the seven-minute video, which has been released by the PRCS, shows that clearly marked ambulances and aid workers wearing reflective gear were fired upon at close range as they exited their vehicles to aid another emergency vehicle at the side of the road. The authenticity of the video has been confirmed from its geolocation.

Filmed from the front interior of a moving vehicle, it shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck with headlights and flashing lights turned on, driving south on a road to the north of Rafah in the early morning. The first rays of sunlight can be seen while morning birds are chirping.

The New York Times described the scene as the aid worker, who is recording the video, exits his vehicle:

A barrage of gunshots is seen and heard in the video hitting the convoy.

The camera shakes, the video goes dark. But the audio continues for five minutes, and the rat-a-tat of gunfire does not stop. A man says in Arabic that there are Israelis present.

The paramedic filming is heard on the video reciting, over and over, the “shahada,” or a Muslim declaration of faith, which people recite when facing death. “There is no God but God, Muhammad is his messenger,” the paramedic is heard saying. He asks God for forgiveness and says he knows he is going to die.

“Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose—to help people,” he said. “Allahu akbar” (God is great), he says.

In the backdrop, a commotion of voices from distraught aid workers and soldiers shouting commands in Hebrew can be heard. It is not clear what they are saying.

According to PRCS, the paramedic who filmed the video was later found in the mass grave with a bullet in his head. The agency has not released his name because he has relatives living in Gaza who are concerned about Israeli retaliation, a UN diplomat said.

The New York Times also analyzed the area where the convoy stops in the video which was captured in a satellite image a few hours later. The Times report says:

At that point, the five ambulances and the fire truck had been moved off the road and clustered together.

Two days later, a new satellite image of the area showed the vehicles were apparently buried. Next to disturbed earth are three Israeli military bulldozers and an excavator. Additionally, bulldozers erected earthen barriers on the road in both directions from the mass grave.

One member of the Palestinian Red Crescent is still missing, and Israel has not said whether he is detained or has been killed, Dr. Khatib said.

According to CNN, which also analyzed satellite video images of the scene starting on March 23 first published by Al Jazeera Arabic shows Israeli military vehicles surrounding a cluster of five ambulances from the PRCS and Civil Defense. Another satellite image dated March 25 shows an Israeli tank, an excavator and other military vehicles at the same location. Where the ambulances previously stood, remnants of vehicles can be seen protruded from disturbed ground.

As more details about the massacre of Palestinian aid workers were emerging, Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip continued with at least 32 people killed, including over a dozen women and children, overnight on Sunday. In one strike, a shell hit a tent and a house in Khan Younis, killing five men, five women and five children, according to Nasser Hospital. A female journalist was among those killed. 

The shelling also killed at least four people in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The bodies of seven people, including a child and three women, arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, according a journalist with the Associated Press. And a strike in Gaza City hit people standing in line outside a bakery and killed at least six, including three children, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense.

With the support of US President Trump, Israel ended its short-lived ceasefire and renewed the air and ground offensive in Gaza with a vengeance, carrying out strikes, seizing territory and blocking the import of desperately needed food, fuel and humanitarian aid as part of its ethnic cleansing operation.

Fascist Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he would meet with Donald Trump a second time to discuss the assault on Gaza. The attack continues to spark public outrage within the country, and the 17 percent tariffs the US imposed on Israel last week are exacerbating the political crisis within the Zionist state.