Rescuers killed by IDF 'had hands tied'

Some of the bodies of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave 10 days ago in Gaza, were found with their hands or legs tied and had gunshot wounds to the head and chest, according to two witnesses.

- Lorenzo Tondo, Malak A Tantesh, Julian Borger

The accounts add to an accumulating body of evidence pointing to a potentially serious war crime on 23 March, when Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance crews and civil defence rescue workers were sent to the scene of an airstrike in the early hours of the morning in the al-Hashashin district of Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city.

International humanitarian teams were only allowed access to the site last weekend. One body was recovered on Saturday. Fourteen more were found in a sandy grave at the site on Sunday and were brought back for autopsies in the nearby city of Khan Younis.

Dr Ahmed al-Farra, a senior doctor at the Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis, witnessed the arrival of some of the remains. He said: "I was able to see three bodies when they were transferred to the Nasser hospital. They had bullets in their chest and head.

They were executed. They had their hands tied. They tied them so they were unable to move and then they killed them." He provided photographs that he said he had taken of one of the dead on arrival at the hospital. The pictures show a hand at the end of a long-sleeved black shirt with a black cord knotted around the wrist.

Another witness, an official from an international aid agency who took part in the recovery of remains from Rafah on Sunday, also said they saw evidence of one of the dead having been shot after being detained.

"I saw the bodies with my own eyes when we found them in the mass grave," the witness, who did not want his name used for his own safety, told the Guardian in a telephone interview. "They had signs of multiple shots in the chest. One of them had legs tied. One was shot in the head. They were executed." The witness accounts add to allegations made by a senior Palestinian Red Crescent official, Palestinian Civil Defence and the Gaza health ministry that some of the victims had been shot after they were detained and put in restraints by Israeli troops.