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The visuals and clips here are extracted from a forthcoming film detailing our collaborative investigation into the events and aftermath of the massacre.
In the early hours of 23 March 2025 in Tel al-Sultan, Gaza, Israeli forces massacred fifteen Palestinian aid workers: eight from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, six from the Palestinian Civil Defence, and one UNRWA staff member. Our investigation confirms that Israeli forces attacked the aid workers while they were travelling in clearly marked humanitarian vehicles, in the absence of any threat or exchange of fire. Spatial and audio analysis conducted in partnership with Earshot reveals the positions from which Israeli soldiers fired on the aid workers – in at least once instance within one to four metres of their victim – over a period of more than two hours.
Working with the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and survivors of the massacre, Earshot and Forensic Architecture (FA) conducted a joint investigation that reconstructs the incident with unprecedented precision, expanding the scope and findings of previous media investigations. Collaborative audio and spatial analysis of witness recordings was reinforced by new ‘situated testimony’ interviews with the two survivors of the massacre from PRCS, volunteer Munther Abed and paramedic Asaad al-Nassasra. Their firsthand accounts were situated within a detailed 3D digital model of the site of the incident. This reconstruction precisely located structures, vehicles and individuals throughout the incident, which in turn formed the basis of Earshot’s audio analysis of the available recordings. This combined methodological approach allowed us to determine the extent, duration, and origins of the hundreds of rounds of bullets fired by Israeli soldiers at the aid workers over the course of the incident.
The massacre
On 18 March 2025, Israel broke the ‘ceasefire’ agreement of 17 January 2025 in Gaza, killing at least 414 Palestinians, including 174 children. Five days later, at 3:55am on 23 March, a PRCS ambulance lost contact with their headquarters while responding to an Israeli airstrike.
Three PRCS ambulances were sent in a rescue convoy to search for the missing ambulance. At 4:55am, crew member Refaat Radwan began recording their search mission with his phone. We were able to confirm the timing of key events in the attack using metadata from Refaat’s recording.
At 5:07am, the rescue convoy was joined by two additional vehicles – an ambulance and a fire truck – belonging to the Palestinian Civil Defence (PCD). The convoy then moved together, all clearly marked and with emergency lights switched on, reaching the location of the missing ambulance along Gush Katif Road at 5:08am.
The aid workers in the convoy exited their vehicles and began to approach the missing ambulance on foot when Israeli soldiers opened fire.
Between the time of the attack on the convoy and 6:05am, two UN vehicles, a Toyota Hilux and a minibus, passed by the site and were similarly attacked.
In total, fifteen Palestinian aid workers were massacred, some shot ‘execution-style’ at close range. The victims were:
Mustafa Khafaja (Ambulance officer, PRCS)
Ezz El-Din Shaat (Ambulance officer, PRCS)
Saleh Muammar (Ambulance officer, PRCS)
Refaat Radwan (First responder volunteer, PRCS)
Muhammad Bahloul (First responder volunteer, PRCS)
Ashraf Abu Libda (First responder volunteer, PRCS)
Muhammad al-Hila (First responder volunteer, PRCS)
Raed al-Sharif (First responder volunteer, PRCS)
Zuhair Abdul Hamid al-Farra (Fire truck driver, PCD)
Samir Yahya al-Bahapsa (Firefighter officer, PCD)
Ibrahim Nabil al-Maghari (Firefighter officer, PCD)
Fouad Ibrahim al-Jamal (Ambulance driver, PCD)
Youssef Rassem Khalifa (Ambulance officer, PCD)
Anwar al-Attar (Ambulance officer, PCD)
Kamal Mohammed Shahtout (UNRWA)
The Situated Testimony of Munther Abed and Asaad al-Nassasra
PRCS volunteer Munther Abed is the sole survivor from the original missing ambulance, and PRCS paramedic Asaad al-Nassasra is the sole survivor from the rescue convoy sent to find it. Using our 3D model of the attack site, we conducted virtual ‘situated testimony’ interviews with Munther and Asaad, facilitated by PRCS.
According to Munther’s testimony, his ambulance came under fire while driving south on Gush Katif Road towards Tel al-Sultan. Driver Mustafa Khafaja and passenger Ezz El-Din Shaat were shot, and Mustafa lost control of the vehicle, which veered left and came to a stop near an electricity pole. When the shooting ceased, Israeli soldiers approached from the right side of the ambulance, arrested Munther, and detained him in a nearby ‘pit’, later moving him to an elevated area behind a tall concrete structure where a group of soldiers was positioned.
Munther described seeing the convoy approach from his position. Our digital reconstruction shows that any soldiers near the structure he identified would have had a clear, unobstructed view of the arriving vehicles, their emergency lights activated and markings plainly visible.
Both Munther and Asaad testified that Israeli soldiers opened fire on the rescue convoy as the aid workers exited their vehicles and approached the ambulance on foot. Asaad recalled crawling toward an ambulance where two colleagues – Muhammad Bahloul and Saleh Muammar – had taken shelter. Muhammad had been killed, and Saleh was severely wounded. Muhammad al-Hila crawled up behind Asaad, and as the two men embraced, Muhammad was shot and killed.
The sunrise on 23 March 2025 in Gaza was at 5:42am. According to Asaad, a Toyota Hilux clearly marked as a UN vehicle arrived at the site after sunrise. The vehicle was fired at, and lost contact with the UN at 6:00am.
Asaad refers to a second UN vehicle in his testimony. Reports suggest that this vehicle, a minibus, arrived at the scene at 6:05am, and was brought to a stop by gunfire. This vehicle is visible in satellite imagery of the area from 11:00am, a few hours after the attack.
At 6:55am, Asaad made a phone call to the PRCS headquarters. He was captured sometime after this call. Around the time of sunset at 5:52pm, Asaad was taken along with several other civilians through the Philadelphia Corridor to Karam Abu Salim Crossing. He was transferred to Sde Teiman prison, where he was interrogated, detained, and tortured for thirty-seven days.
Refaat’s Recording
Refaat Radwan was a PRCS volunteer and member of the rescue convoy sent to search for Munther and his colleagues in the missing ambulance. That night, he was travelling in the same vehicle as Asaad. Before the convoy arrived at the site, Refaat began recording video and audio with his phone, capturing the start of the attack on the convoy and roughly six minutes of sustained gunfire thereafter. This recording not only enabled us to reconstruct the positions of the vehicles in the convoy as they approached the site, but also to determine Refaat’s position during most of the gunfire, forming the basis of the audio analysis.
At 5:09am, gunfire erupted. During the gunfire, Refaat shielded his phone with his hand. Seven seconds into the shooting, the figure of PRCS paramedic Asaad al-Nassasra is visible on the ground between Refaat’s fingers.
Audio Analysis
Earshot analysed audio from Refaat’s video and two phone calls with PRCS headquarters: one made by paramedic Ashraf Abu Libda at 5:14am and another by Asaad al-Nassasra around 6:55am. At least 910 gunshots were documented across the recordings from the night. The majority of the recorded gunshots, at least 844, were captured in Refaat’s video, all fired within a five-and-a-half-minute period. An audio ballistic analysis of these 844 gunshots established that Refaat’s camera was consistently in the line of fire throughout the shooting.
Earshot’s analysis found that there was an overlap between Refaat’s video and Ashraf’s phone call by synchronising the gunshots across the two recordings. Using FA’s 3D reconstruction of the site, Earshot simulated how sound travelled and reflected, identifying a two-metre-high, fifty-metre-wide concrete wall as the only surface capable of producing the recorded echoes. FA then situated Earshot’s audio analysis in its existing model of the site, visualising sound waves and their resulting echoes as they moved through the environment and were picked up by the recording devices present. Through the process of echolocation, Earshot confirmed that the gunfire originated from Israeli soldiers positioned on an elevated sandbank between thirty-eight and forty-eight metres southeast of the vehicles – the same position described by Munther. From this vantage point, overlooking the road on which the victims’ vehicles travelled, the vehicles’ emergency lights and markings would have been clearly visible to the soldiers at the time of the attack.
After Refaat’s video ends, Ashraf’s phone call continues for fifty-two seconds, capturing twenty-four additional gunshots. Eight of these shots each produced muzzle blast echoes reflecting from surfaces between three and twenty-four metres from Ashraf’s phone; the only surfaces within that range were the emergency vehicles themselves, indicating that the shooters were firing from between the vehicles, within metres of the aid workers. Audio analysis indicates that one of these shots was fired within one to four metres of Ashraf. These shots coincide with the last time Ashraf’s voice is heard, strongly suggesting that he was executed at close range.
Autopsy reports state that Refaat was shot in his head, and Muhammad Bahloul and Ashraf were shot in their chest. A doctor who examined the bodies reportedly described the ‘specific and intentional location of shots at close range’ as indicative of an ‘execution-style’ shooting.
Israeli Cover-Up
Following the attack, the Israeli military deliberately concealed and disturbed evidence, and in the weeks after repeatedly mischaracterised the incident and denied any wrongdoing. The military falsely claimed that the victims had been travelling in unmarked, uncoordinated vehicles without emergency lights in a ‘dangerous combat zone’; and that Israeli soldiers had been responding to an active threat. This claim was subsequently challenged both by witness testimonies and the video recording recovered from Refaat’s phone, which clearly showed that emergency lights were activated for each vehicle and that there was no active threat or exchange of fire before or during the incident.
Approximately two and a half hours after the attack, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for residents of Tel al-Sultan, designating the area a ‘dangerous combat zone’ and stating that ‘moving by vehicles is prohibited’. The timing and content of the order suggests it was an attempt by the Israeli military to justify the massacre post factum. Metadata confirms that at the time of the attack, the aid workers were travelling along a route that was open to civilian and humanitarian movement and did not require prior coordination, directly contradicting the Israeli military’s subsequent claims and proposed narrative.
Repeated requests from the PRCS and the United Nations Humanitarian Office to access the site in the week following the attack were rejected by the Israeli military.
On 27 March, the body of Anwar al-Attar was discovered near the site. On 30 March, rescue teams finally gained access to the site, where they discovered the bodies of the other fourteen victims buried in a shallow mass grave. All victims were found wearing uniforms or identifying insignia and several had their hands or legs bound. All eight vehicles were found crushed by heavy machinery and buried in the same mass grave alongside the victims’ bodies.
Transformation of the Site of the Attack
Earthworks in the hours after the attack transformed the incident site into a mass grave where the bodies and vehicles of the victims were buried. Later that day, an evacuation route was mapped through the site. Two checkpoints were established nearby, and a series of earth berms were built and later used for holding and interrogating Palestinians passing through the checkpoint.
Munther was forced by Israeli soldiers to work at a military checkpoint erected in the area, separating men, women, and those wanted for interrogation into newly formed pits in the earth.
The earthworks that began on the site in the hours after the attack were used in the construction of the ‘Morag’ corridor and a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation ‘aid distribution’ site, at which civilians were targeted and shot at.
Update
24.02.2026
Our research was launched at a UK parliamentary gathering hosted by the British Palestinian Committee (BPC) on 24 February 2026. Sponsored by Simon Opher MP, and chaired by Dr Zena Agha (Director, BPC), the event featured a screening of extracts from the investigative film, a physical 3D model of the site of the attack, as well as contributions from Lawrence Abu Hamdan (Director, Earshot), Samaneh Moafi (Assistant Director of Research, Forensic Architecture), and Dana Abu Koash (Coordinator of the IHL Unit, PRCS). They discussed our findings, methodologies, and the implications for accountability efforts.