Mick Clifford: The ambulance massacre Israel tried — and failed — to hide

The killing of Gaza’s paramedics exposes a chilling pattern of dehumanisation and echoes of past atrocities

Mourners carry the bodies of Red Crescent emergency responders, recovered in Rafah a week after they were killed in an Israeli attack. Picture: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

Rifaat Radwan knew he was about to die. He had been shot, mown down in a hail of bullets. As he lay there, he left a message on his phone for his mother. “Forgive me, mama,” he said.

These were among his last recorded words. He wanted forgiveness for the pain his death would cause her mother, who had worried about him every day since he has signed up to serve as a paramedic in their native Gaza.