'What was their crime?' Relatives' grief and fury at Israeli massacre of paramedics

Gaza is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a civilian now that Israeli forces have resumed their military campaign with even more ferocity but, for the first responders who rush towards the wreckage of bombed buildings, the risks are multiplied many times over.

- Malak A Tantesh Gaza Julian Borger

The 15 paramedics and rescue workers whose bodies were found last weekend in a pit dug by bulldozers outside Rafah knew they were putting their lives in peril in their efforts to save others, but they could not have been prepared for what awaited them in the early morning of 23 March.

Saleh Muammar, a 45-year-old Red Crescent ambulance officer and paramedic, had already come close to death twice, his brother, Bilal, recalled. Earlier in the war Saleh was assigned to transport patients between hospitals when his vehicle came under Israeli army fire. The ambulance driver was killed instantly, and a bullet lodged in Muammar's chest, near his heart. Administering first aid on himself, he slid below his seat and steered the car out of the line of fire by following directions over the radio from his colleagues.

Muammar spent three months in hospital and then returned to work. Not long after, on a rescue mission near Rafah, his ambulance was shot at again and he was wounded in the right shoulder. Saleh and Bilal talked about how he had used up all his luck and the third time would be fatal. It was half joke, half deadly serious, and it turned out to be prophetic.

"He said that whatever was intended for him, would happen," Bilal said.

Before he went out on his night shift on 22 March, Saleh bought bulk quantities of household goods for his wife, their six children and his brother's two children, who they had been looking after since their father was killed earlier in the conflict. "He said it would benefit them in the future. It was as if he had a feeling he would not return," Bilal said.

Saleh joined the Red Crescent during the 2008-2009 Israeli invasion of Gaza. He had studied business administration at al-Azhar University, but his urge to do something immediate to help people amid the turmoil and bloodshed led him to train as a paramedic.