WHEN ISRAEL KILLS DOCTORS AND NURSES

The story unfolded on March 23rd, but it was only this week that details emerged of a massacre committed against doctors and nurses in Gaza, in which 15 of them were murdered, without the slightest justification.

Various Arab and foreign media outlets reported on this massacre this Saturday, but certain details that have only just been revealed were unknown.

The medics were traveling in two vehicles marked as belonging to a medical corps. They also wore reflective tape to confirm that they were medical personnel. It is a blatant lie to claim, as the Jewish armed forces did, that they belonged to a terrorist group.

The United Nations General Security Council recovered a cell phone video of a medic who died in the attack, although he was able to film some scenes before he died.

This murder of 15 medical workers lacks the slightest justification and demonstrates the barbarity of the Israeli armed forces. It was nighttime, and without even trying to check which vehicles were traveling, they began shooting at them until they verified the deaths of their occupants.

A video that contradicts the Israeli army's version of events. On March 23, 15 rescuers and humanitarian personnel were killed by Israeli gunfire in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, including members of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the Gaza Civil Defense Agency, and UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. The IDF said at the time that it was investigating the incident, while asserting that its soldiers had fired on "terrorists" and "suspicious vehicles" that were advancing toward them "with all lights off," without first informing the Israeli authorities.

This version appears to be contradicted by a video obtained by The New York Times from the cell phone of a paramedic killed on March 23. This document, just over six minutes long, filmed from one of the vehicles in the convoy, shows that the other ambulances and the fire truck under attack were "clearly identified" and had "headlights, hazard lights, and flashing lights" when the Israeli troops opened fire. Two clearly identified paramedics are also seen getting out of their vehicles after the first shots, but this did not prevent the shooting from continuing for "five minutes."

There is no doubt that the Israeli forces are going through moments of tension and do not exercise sufficient restraint. Instead, they shoot and only later verify the identity of the people they have killed. The IDF, despite claiming otherwise, is far from being a democratic force.