‘Oh God, it’s my mother’: Gazan medic breaks down as he recognises corpse

Samira Bardini, 61, was killed by Israeli air strike on car in Maghazi refugee camp which fatally injured three people

A Palestinian ambulance worker screamed in agony as he realised the corpse he was carrying on a stretcher was that of his own mother.
Breaking down in tears, Abed Bardini was filmed shouting, “I didn’t know it was her,” as he leant over the body he was transporting to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in central Gaza.
The paramedic was barely able to walk as he pushed the gurney through the hospital premises, burying his head by that of the shroud-covered body.
Samira Bardini, 61, was fatally injured in an air strike and her son sat unknowingly next to her body inside the ambulance, the Associated Press reported.
Three people were killed and at least 10 wounded by a strike on a car in Maghazi refugee camp on Wednesday, according to Palestinian health officials.
Two of the people who died were said to be men sitting in the vehicle, while Bardini was killed as she stood nearby.
The strike comes as conditions worsen in Gaza with aid falling to its lowest level since the war began and fears more will go hungry by Israel’s decision to ban Unrwa, the main aid agency.
There has been intense fighting in recent weeks owing to a resurgence of the terror group Hamas and thousands of residents were displaced after a two-week siege on Jabalai, the biggest refugee camp in Gaza.
Mr Bardini was in one of two ambulances dispatched to Maghazi and, after travelling a mile in the vehicle, unloaded the stretcher and wheeled the body across the hospital courtyard.
Inside, medical staff pulled back the blanket to check for signs of life, and Mr Bardini collapsed, AP reported.
“Oh God, I swear — she’s my mother. I didn’t know it was her,” Mr Bardini was filmed screaming as he leant over his mother and cradled her head in his arm.
Fellow Red Cross medics tried to console him, with his shirt covered in blood.
He later sat in the morgue beside his mother’s body with his head in his hands, and alongside other paramedics held a funeral prayer over her body in the car park.
Mr Bardini then helped to carry the body into an ambulance for burial.
A spokesman for the Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reports that more than 40,000 people have been killed since the war began after the terror group massacred 1,200 Israelis on Oct 7 last year.
The strike on the refugee camp came as a senior Hamas official said the group would reject any proposal for a temporary halt to fighting.
Taher al-Nunu, a senior leader of Hamas, told the AFP news agency: “The idea of a temporary pause in the war, only to resume aggression later, is something we have already expressed our position on. Hamas supports a permanent end to the war, not a temporary one.”
Mediators seeking to broker a Gaza ceasefire are expected to propose a truce of “less than a month” to Hamas, a source with knowledge of meetings between David Barnea, the head of Mossad, Bill Burns, the CIA director, and Qatar’s prime minister in Doha, said.
The proposals are said to involve exchanging Israeli hostages for Palestinians in Israeli prisons and increasing aid to Gaza with the US said to hope that a short-term deal could lead to a permanent agreement.
Separately, the United States has presented a ceasefire resolution which would end the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The draft, revealed by the Israeli broadcaster KAN, would see the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war implemented.
It calls on all parties to stop fighting during a 60-day ceasefire in which Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon, and the Lebanese government would ensure that Hezbollah is disarmed and prevented from regrouping or taking control of territory. 
The Lebanese army would be in charge of dismantling and confiscating military assets, arms and infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah or other groups.
The resolution would see 10,000 Lebanese soldiers stationed along the border with Israel tasked with monitoring and enforcing “any unregulated entry of arms and related material into Lebanon, including through all border crossings”.
The Lebanese army will also deploy forces to “all borders and all regulated and non-regulated land, air, and sea border crossings”.
To ensure that the Lebanese army will have the resources to implement the deal, the US and the international community will help increase the army’s strength, size and capacity.
Should the mechanisms fail, the US recognises Israel may choose to act to defend itself against threats to its security, which includes the “production, storage, or transportation of heavy weaponry; ballistic, medium, and long-range missiles and other advanced weaponry”.
Israel and Lebanon are yet to publicly comment on the draft proposal put forward by Washington, which comes less than a week before the US presidential election and a month after the ground invasion began.
An official briefed on the matter told The Telegraph that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is not looking to make any “major moves” before the US election, but that the war with Hezbollah is gradually achieving all its goals.
“The proposal put forward by the US isn’t bad, but Israel will need a bit more time to destroy more of Hezbollah’s military capabilities threatening Israeli civilians. But there’s an understanding that Israel would like to wrap up the war with an effective settlement in the near future,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
It came as seven people were killed on Thursday in Hezbollah rocket fire in the deadliest day for Israeli civilians since the ground invasion of Lebanon began.
Five people were killed and another was seriously wounded in strikes towards the border town of Metula as Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets at northern Israel.
The area is a closed military zone but agricultural workers had still been permitted to enter the area.
A woman in her 60s and a man in his 20s died after being critically injured near Kibbutz Afek in Israel during a sustained rocket barrage in the area around the city of Haifa.