Israeli Soldiers Killed Gaza Aid Workers at Point Blank Range in 2025 Massacre: Report

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Israeli soldiers fired nearly a thousand bullets during the massacre of 15 Palestinian aid workers in southern Gaza on March 23, 2025—with at least eight shots fired at point blank range—according to a joint investigation by the independent research groups Earshot and Forensic Architecture. The report, based on eyewitness testimony and audio and visual analysis, shows that a number of aid workers were executed and that at least one was shot from as close as one meter away.

In Tel al-Sultan that day, Israel killed eight aid workers with the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), six from Palestinian Civil Defense, and a UN relief agency staffer. It immediately triggered international condemnation and was described as “one of the darkest moments” of the war by PRCS.

The Israeli military was forced to change its story about the ambush several times, following the discovery of the bodies in a mass grave, along with their flattened vehicles, and the emergence of video and audio recordings taken by the aid workers. An internal military inquiry ultimately did not recommend any criminal action against the army units responsible for the incident.

The report by Earshot and Forensic Architecture reconstructs, minute by minute, how the massacre unfolded. Using video and audio recordings from the incident, open-source images and videos, satellite imagery, social media posts, and other materials, as well as in-depth interviews with two survivors of the attack, the groups were able to digitally reconstruct the scene and events surrounding the massacre.

The investigation’s findings include:

• Israeli soldiers ambushed and subjected Palestinian aid workers to a near continuous assault for over two hours even though the soldiers never came under fire.

• At least 910 gunshots were documented across three video and audio recordings of the attack. The vast majority of these gunshots, at least 844, were fired over just five minutes and 30 seconds.

• At least 93% of the gunshots recorded in the first minutes of the attack were fired directly towards the emergency vehicles and aid workers by Israeli soldiers. During this time, at least five shooters fired simultaneously. Witness testimonies suggest as many as 30 soldiers were present in the area.

• Israeli soldiers were initially positioned on an elevated sandbank by the road, with no obstructions limiting

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