Summary
The March 23, 2025 shooting at ambulances in Tel al-Sultan, Rafah, in which 15 people were killed, which Debunking the Genocide Allegations examines in detail as a possible atrocity with credible evidence — negligence and reckless shooting at the most lenient interpretation, suspected war crimes at the worst — but not a deliberate, close-range massacre (Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Reexamination of the Israel-Hamas War from October 7, 2023 to June 1, 2025, PDF p.84-87).
Details
- IDF soldiers opened fire on ambulances travelling with their lights on, resulting in 15 deaths; the initial IDF report, later proven false, claimed the soldiers shot at vehicles without lights and that at least nine passengers, including one identified as Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, were Hamas or Islamic Jihad fighters; the bodies were buried by an IDF bulldozer that also crushed the vehicles (PDF p.84).
- Palestinian witnesses claimed some victims had been handcuffed and showed signs of execution at close range; the IDF’s Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism denied that victims had been tied before being shot, a denial later substantiated by Palestinian medical authorities, which found no evidence of restraints on the bodies (PDF p.84, p.86).
- The shooting unfolded as three incidents: a first ambulance (two killed, one detained and released the next day), a five-vehicle convoy of ambulances and a fire truck shot at for at least six minutes from about 50 metres, advancing to about 10 metres (12 killed, one detained and released a month later), and a UN vehicle whose Palestinian driver was killed about 12 minutes later, in violation of orders on the IDF’s account (PDF p.85-86).
- The deputy commander of the Golani reconnaissance battalion who led the ambush was dismissed and the brigade commander responsible for the sector reprimanded; the chief military prosecutor was considering a Military Police investigation, on Yaniv Kubovich’s Haaretz reporting of the fuller investigation (PDF p.86).
- Detained witnesses and survivors were released, not killed, and other vehicles passed through without being fired on, which the authors read as difficult to reconcile with an organised massacre; a surviving medic recalled that after a violent interrogation “an officer came and ordered the soldiers to stop. He called them crazy and said they don’t know how to communicate with people” (PDF p.87).
Related pages
Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Reexamination of the Israel-Hamas War from October 7, 2023 to June 1, 2025, Golani Brigade, Lee Mordechai, Israel Defense Forces