UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Israeli military backtracked on its account of the killing of 15 Palestinian medics by its forces last month after phone video appeared to contradict its claims that their vehicles did not have emergency signals on when troops opened fire on them in the Gaza Strip.
The military initially said it opened fire because the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” on nearby troops without headlights or emergency signals. An Israeli military official, speaking late Saturday on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said that account was “mistaken.”
The footage shows the Red Crescent and Civil Defense teams driving slowly with their emergency vehicles’ lights flashing, logos visible, as they pulled up to help an ambulance that had come under fire earlier. The teams do not appear to be acting unusually or in a threatening manner as three medics emerge and head toward the stricken ambulance.
Their vehicles immediately come under a barrage of gunfire, which goes on for more than five minutes with brief pauses. The owner of the phone can be heard praying.
“Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose, mother, to help people,” he cries, his voice weak.
Eight Red Crescent personnel, six Civil Defense workers and a U.N. staffer were killed in the shooting before dawn on March 23 by Israeli troops conducting operations in Tel al-Sultan, a district of the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Troops then bulldozed over the bodies along with their mangled vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. U.N. and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society's vice president, Marwan Jilani, said the phone with the footage was found in the pocket of one of its slain staffers. The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations distributed the video to the U.N. Security Council. The Associated Press obtained the video from a U.N. diplomat on condition of anonymity because it has not been made public.
One paramedic who survived, Munzer Abed, confirmed the veracity of the video to the AP. Two block-shaped concrete structures visible in the video are also seen in a U.N. video released Sunday showing the recovery of the bodies from the site — a sign they are in the same location.
Asked about the video, the Israeli military said Saturday that the incident was “under thorough examination.”
The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Younes Al-Khatib, called for an independent investigation. "We don’t trust any of the army investigations,” he told a briefing at the U.N. on Friday.
One medic, Assaad al-Nassasra, is still missing, the Red Crescent says. Abed said he saw al-Nassasra being led away blindfolded by Israeli troops. Al-Khatib said the organization has asked the military where it is holding the staffer.
Al-Khatib said the slain men had been “targeted at close range” and that a forensic autopsy report would be released soon.
Israel has accused Hamas of moving and hiding its fighters inside ambulances and emergency vehicles, as well as in hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, arguing that justifies strikes on them. Medical personnel largely deny the accusations.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 150 emergency responders from the Red Crescent and Civil Defense, most of them while on duty, as well as over 1,000 health workers, according to the U.N. The Israeli military rarely investigates such incidents.
Ambulances started heading to Tel al-Sultan at around 3:50 a.m. on March 23, responding to reports of wounded, Jilani said. The first ambulance returned safely with at least one casualty, he said. But, he said, subsequent ambulances came under fire.
His hands trembling, Abed told the AP on Saturday that as his ambulance entered the area, its siren lights were on. “All of a sudden, I am telling you, there was direct shooting at us,” so intense that the vehicle ground to a stop, he said.
A 10-year veteran of the Red Crescent, Abed said he was sitting in the back seat and ducked to the floor. He said he could hear nothing from his two colleagues in the front seat — the only others in the vehicle. They appear to have been killed instantly.
Israeli troops, some with night goggles, dragged Abed out of the ambulance and onto the ground, he said. They made him strip to his underwear, beat him all over his body with their rifle butts, then tied his hands behind his back, he said.
They interrogated him, asking him about his paramedic training and how many people were in the ambulance with him, he said. One soldier pressed the muzzle of his automatic rifle into his neck. Another pressed his knife blade into Abed’s palm, almost cutting it, until a third soldier pulled them away and warned Abed, “They’re crazy.”
Abed said he witnessed them opening fire on the next vehicles to arrive. Soldiers forced him onto his stomach and pressed a gun into his back, he said, and amid the shooting in the darkness, so he could only see two Civil Defense vehicles.
The phone video shows a rescue convoy of Red Crescent and Civil Defense vehicles that was sent out after contact was lost with the stricken ambulance. Taken from the dashboard of one vehicle, it shows several ambulances and a fire truck moving down a road through a barren area in the darkness. The emergency lights on their roofs are flashing the entire way.
They arrive at an ambulance on the side of the road and stop next to it, their lights still flashing. No Israeli troops are visible.
“Lord, let them be OK,” a man in the car says. Then he cries out, “They’re tossed around on the ground!” — apparently referring to bodies. Three men in orange Civil Defense clothing can be seen getting out of the vehicles and walking toward the stopped ambulance.
A shot rings out and one of the men appears to fall. Gunfire erupts.
The man holding the phone appears to scramble out of the car and onto the ground, but the screen goes black, though the audio continues. The gunfire goes on for nearly five and a half minutes, with long, heavy barrages followed by silences punctuated by individual shots and shouts and screams.
Throughout, the man with the phone says over and over, “There is no God but God and Muhammad is God’s prophet” — the profession of faith that Muslims say when they fear they are about to die. Near the end of the six-minute, 40-second video, voices can be heard shouting in Hebrew. “The Jews are coming,” the man said, referring to Israeli soldiers, before the video cuts off.
The Israeli military official asserted there was “no mistreatment,” and said he didn’t know why the vehicles had been buried. He had no information about the medic who remained missing.
The Israeli military says that after the shooting, troops determined they had killed a Hamas figure named Mohammed Amin Shobaki and eight other militants. However, none of the 15 slain medics has that name, and no other bodies are known to have been found at the site.
The military has not said what happened to Shobaki's body or released the names of the other alleged militants. The Israeli military official said Israel was “working to bring evidence” that Hamas operatives were killed.
Jonathan Whittall, interim head in Gaza of the U.N. humanitarian office OCHA, dismissed allegations that the slain medics were Hamas militants, saying staff had worked with the same medics previously in evacuating patients from hospitals and other tasks.
“These are paramedic crews that I personally have met before," he said. “They were buried in their uniforms with their gloves on. They were ready to save lives.”
Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip; Keath from Cairo. Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations, Sarah El Deeb in Cairo, Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Areej Hazboun contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
FILE.- Mourners carry the bodies of 8 Red Crescent emergency responders, recovered in Rafah a week after an Israeli attack, as they are transported for burial from a hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana,File)
FILE.- Mourners gather around the bodies of 8 Red Crescent emergency responders, recovered in Rafah a week after an Israeli attack, as they are transported for burial from a hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana,File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans narrowly approved their budget framework Thursday, a political turnaround after Speaker Mike Johnson worked into the night to satisfy GOP holdouts who had refused to advance trillions of dollars in tax breaks without deeper spending cuts.
Johnson stood with Senate Majority Leader John Thune early in the morning at the Capitol to shore up President Donald Trump’s "big, beautiful bill,” and they committed to seeking at least $1.5 trillion in cuts to federal programs and services. The speaker had abruptly halted voting Wednesday night.
“I told you not to doubt us,” Johnson, R-La., said afterward.
He acknowledged the week's economic turmoil as the financial markets “have been a little unstable.” Americans “want to know Congress is on the job. And I’m here to tell you we are,” the speaker said.
The 216-214 vote pushed the budget plan forward, one more milestone for Johnson, and the next step in a lengthy process to unlock the centerpiece to the president’s domestic agenda of tax cuts, mass deportations and a smaller federal government. A failed vote, particularly as the economy was convulsing over Trump’s trade wars, would have been a major setback for the party in power in Washington. Two conservative Republicans voted against it, as did all Democrats.
Trump, at a black-tie fundraising dinner this week, had admonished Republicans to "stop grandstanding” on the budget.
By Thursday morning, Trump had shifted his tone.
“Biggest Tax Cuts in USA History!!! Getting close,” Trump said.
The House action still leaves weeks, if not months, ahead, on a final product, with more votes in Congress. Johnson could lose only a few detractors from his slim Republican majority. Democrats, in the minority, lack the votes to stop the package, but they have warned against it.
But by Wednesday afternoon, the outcome was in flux. At least a dozen conservative Republicans, if not more, were firmly against the plan. Several of them, including members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, made the unusual move of walking across the Capitol to meet privately with Senate GOP leaders to insist on deeper cuts.
As night fell, Johnson pulled a group of Republicans into a private meeting room as House proceedings came to a standstill. They stayed into the night hashing out alternatives, and were back at it in the morning.
Johnson said he spoke with Trump for about five minutes while the GOP meeting was taking place.
“The president is very anxious for us to get this done,” Johnson said.
But House GOP conservatives, including several of those who met with Trump this week, were concerned that the Senate GOP's blueprint, approved last weekend, did not cut spending to the level they believe necessary to help prevent soaring deficits.
“The Math Does Not Add Up,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, had posted earlier on social media.
Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., the Freedom Caucus chair, led others to meet with the senators.
In the end, Harris, Roy and almost all the holdouts came on board. They said they were assured by Johnson, Thune and Trump that there would be steep cuts ahead. Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana voted “no.”
“We got as much as we could,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. ”We realized it was bigger than us."
Before the vote, Thune, R-S.D., tried to assure House conservatives that many GOP senators were aligned with their pursuit of spending reductions.
“We certainly are going to do everything we can,” Thune said.
But the details ahead will matter. Key Republican senators already signaled their disapproval of some $800 billion in House-proposed cuts that could hit Medicaid and other vital programs.
Johnson tried to insist that the health care and other services that millions of Americans rely on, particularly Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, would be spared. Republicans instead are seeking to impose new restrictions on benefits and cut what they portray as waste, fraud and abuse, following billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
The House and Senate are at the beginning phase of a process as they turn their budget resolutions into legislative text — a final product expected later this spring or summer.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said the budget plan is reckless and callous, proposing cuts to give tax breaks to the wealthy.
“We’re here to make it clear,” Jeffries said. “Hands off everyday Americans struggling to make ends meet.”
Central to the budget framework is the Republican effort to preserve the tax breaks approved in 2017, during Trump's first term, while potentially adding the new ones he promised during his 2024 campaign. That includes no taxes on tipped wages, Social Security income and others, ballooning the price tag to some $7 trillion over the decade.
The package also allows for budget increases with some $175 billion to pay for Trump's deportation operation and as much for the Defense Department to bolster military spending.
The plan would also raise the nation's debt limit to allow more borrowing to pay the bills. Trump had wanted lawmakers to take the politically difficult issue off the table. With debt now at $36 trillion, the Treasury Department has said it will run out of funds by August.
But the House and Senate need to resolve their differences on the debt limit, as well. The House GOP increases the debt limit by $4 trillion, but the Senate lifted it to $5 trillion so Congress would not have to revisit the issue again until after the midterm elections in November 2026.
To clip costs, the Senate is using an unusual accounting method that does not count the costs of preserving the 2017 tax cuts, some $4.5 trillion, as new spending, another factor that is enraging the House conservatives.
With Trump's trade wars hovering over the debate, House Republicans tucked a provision into a procedural vote that would prevent House action — as the Senate has taken — to disapprove of Trump’s tariffs.
Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Stephen Groves, Leah Askarinam and Matt Brown contributed to this report.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters just after House Republicans approved their budget framework that is central to President Donald Trump's agenda, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., departs after he and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., made statements to reporters ahead of a vote in the House to pass a bill on President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities of spending reductions and tax breaks, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., left, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., make statements to reporters ahead of vote in the House to pass a bill on President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities of spending reductions and tax breaks, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., left, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., make statements to reporters ahead of vote in the House to pass a bill on President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities of spending reductions and tax breaks, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, right, and Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, meet outside of the closed-door House Republican Conference as Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to fellow Republicans to push for a House-Senate compromise budget resolution to advance President Donald Trump's agenda, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the ranking member of the House Rules Committee, challenges Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, as President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities on spending reductions and tax breaks are prepared for a floor vote, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, joined at right by Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., the ranking member, defends the Republican plan to advance President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities on spending reductions and tax breaks as the House Rules Committee prepares the measure for a floor vote, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., leaves the chamber after an essential procedural vote passed in the House to advance President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities on spending reductions and tax breaks, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, listens as the Republican plan to advance President Donald Trump's top domestic priorities on spending reductions and tax breaks is prepared in the House Rules Committee for a floor vote, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. The deficit hawk has blasted the GOP plan drawing the ire of both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters about his push for a House-Senate compromise budget resolution to advance President Donald Trump's agenda, even with opposition from hard-line conservative Republicans, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
