‘Point-Blank Range’: How Israel Executed 15 Medics and Rescue Workers in Gaza
I had a difficult time writing this essay because I could not stop thinking about the level of evil needed to carry this out.
“What is the use, Diana? Why do we have to keep displaying our dead? Can’t we just die in dignity?” These were the words sent to me by one of my friends in Gaza. After nearly 18 months of witnessing Israel kill more than 60,000 Palestinians, flatten buildings, mosques, and schools, and bomb hospitals and universities, it was Israel’s killing of Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers that led him to send me those words.
It is obvious why. Yes, the Israeli army kills paramedics and rescue workers, just as it targets journalists, doctors, professors, teachers, and just about anyone else. But this time, it was different: the Israeli army gunned down 15 rescue workers last month but only after reportedly making sure that at least some of their hands and legs were tied, unable to move. In other words, Israeli soldiers executed these rescue workers at point-blank range; they were reportedly found with approximately 20 gunshot wounds (each) to the head and chest. But the soldiers did not just tie up and then execute them. No, this time, the ambulances and firetrucks that these rescue workers were in – vehicles that were on their way to rescue other Palestinians in Rafah that Israel had decided to bomb – were flattened and then buried in the sand by the Israeli army. It took days to find them, and one remains missing.
I have had a difficult time even writing these words because I cannot stop thinking about the level of evil needed to carry this out. First, they had to stop the ambulance, the UN vehicle, and the fire truck. Then, they had to tie up the rescue workers. Then, they had to shoot them (repeatedly). Then, they had to flatten the vehicles they were in, and then they had to use a bulldozer to bury the vehicles. This isn’t the work of one “rogue” soldier – as Palestinians are always led to believe, but the work of a group of soldiers – soldiers who have been told time and again that their actions in Gaza have no consequences and that they can do as they please.