It’s almost 5 a.m. on March 23 in Rafah, southern Gaza. Two Red Crescent medics are out searching for a missing ambulance crew. Driving is Asaad al-Nasasra and sitting beside him and filming is Rifaat Radwan. Both have worked with the Red Crescent for years. Rifaat worries their missing colleagues have come under attack. They haven’t heard from them for an hour. They will soon discover that Israeli soldiers have fired on the crew, killing two of them. Before long, Rifaat will also be killed along with 12 other staff from the Red Crescent, Civil Defense and the United Nations. The New York Times obtained Rifaat’s footage and reconstructed moment by moment how this unprovoked attack unfolded. We synchronized his video with another phone recording from the scene. We reviewed autopsy reports and photos of the bodies and we interviewed eyewitnesses. Our investigation shows how Israeli soldiers fired repeatedly on unarmed medics, closed in around them and continued shooting for more than six minutes, even as several of the crew were still alive, wearing their uniforms and praying. Investigating itself, the I.D.F. has said there were professional failures and dismissed the deputy commander who was involved. But independent experts say that to knowingly attack medics is a breach of the laws of war. Days before the attack, Israel had broken the cease-fire in Gaza with intense airstrikes after negotiations with Hamas to release hostages broke down. Ground forces had moved into Rafah, and on the night in question, the I.D.F. says it set up an ambush on this road ahead of an evacuation order to flush out suspected militants when people moved. Red Crescent crews were working overnight to rescue casualties from a nearby airstrike. But when one crew goes missing, others, including Asaad and Rifaat, are sent out to find them. In the darkness, they initially don’t see the missing ambulance. It had been passing by here just an hour earlier when the Israeli unit opened fire on it. They killed the two medics sitting in the front, Ezz al-Deen Shath and Mustafa Khafaja, and detained a third medic, Munther Abed, who survived. He told us what happened. Munther told us he was stripped and beaten. The I.D.F. said it thought the ambulance was a Hamas vehicle, and has long contended that Hamas uses ambulances to transport weapons and fighters. Back on the road, Rifaat and Asaad pass the Israeli soldiers without incident and meet up with other medics who were also out searching. Saleh Muammar, who was driving the other ambulance, says he spotted bodies on the ground. They ready the ambulances to return, but Saleh worries they will be attacked if they move ahead without more vehicles. A Civil Defense ambulance and fire engine joined them. And they continue on as a convoy. Overhead, an Israeli drone is watching them. The I.D.F. later said that a drone operator told soldiers on the ground the convoy was advancing suspiciously, but they are clearly marked as emergency services. And the vehicles are flashing their lights, which soldiers could see, the I.D.F. later told us. The medics pull in. Around 20 I.D.F. soldiers are positioned here, 100 feet off the roadside. Almost all of the first responders are clearly marked in reflective gear. They are unarmed and moving away from the I.D.F. Rifaat sees his colleagues bodies. As they rush to rescue them, they’re met by a hail of gunfire. [gunshots] Rifaat scrambles to the driver’s side and is shielded for now by the ambulance. He begins to pray. In total, Rifaat films almost six minutes of gunfire. We produced a condensed timeline that gives an insight into the I.D.F.’s actions. After the first barrage comes a 20-second pause. Rifaat repeats the Shahada — a declaration of faith that Muslims also say as they face death. An ambulance tries to escape. But another hail of gunfire erupts. We hear continuous single shots. Then automatic fire. Another pause. First responders can be heard screaming. Then another barrage from multiple rifles. None of these medics are armed, and all of the fire is coming from the I.D.F. A long pause, Rifaat asks his mother’s forgiveness. Steady gunfire, closer to Rifaat, now, for the full minute. An ambulance is shot at. Medics were still inside some of the vehicles. One of them, Ashraf Abu Labda — phones a Red Crescent dispatcher who records the call. We synchronized Ashraf’s call with Rifaat’s video to better understand what they both were seeing. Israeli soldiers appear to approach, shouting in Hebrew, but it’s unclear what they’re saying. Both Ashraf and Rifaat see them around the same time. From Ashraf’s phone call, slow, deliberate shots are heard now. An Israeli soldier orders his troops. Ashraf hangs up. Amid the emergency vehicles, Rifaat’s phone is positioned here. Three audio experts who analyzed his recording determined that the soldiers begin shooting up to 150 feet away. This aligns with where witnesses saw the I.D.F. positioned and where it built sand barricades. As the shooting continues, the gunfire closes in to within 60, 50 and then 40 feet of Rifaat by Minute 6 of the attack. Drone footage the I.D.F. showed The Times confirms that the soldiers moved in. Rifaat was still alive at this time. He was shot multiple times, his autopsy showed. And inside this ambulance, Ashraf was also alive. He was shot in the chest. A witness with a clear view of what happened, Saeed al-Bardawil, a civilian who was detained and held with the I.D.F. troops before the attack on the convoy. Saeed says that I.D.F. reinforcements later came, and then soldiers shot first responders as they lay on the ground. Minutes after the shooting, a clearly marked United Nations vehicle happened on the scene. The I.D.F. fired on it too, killing Kamal Shahtout, a U.N. employee who was on his way to rescue colleagues injured in another attack. Saeed says he saw the I.D.F. then bury both the bodies and vehicles. The I.D.F. said this was not done to conceal the attack, but in The Times’s experience of reporting on its actions in Gaza, burying bodies and vehicles is not something the I.D.F. normally does. Crushing the vehicles was an operational error, the I.D.F. told us. “Why did you hide the bodies? Why and why? They have to answer for that.” Younis Al-Khatib, the head of the Red Crescent, told us that for the next five days he begged the I.D.F. for information on the whereabouts of their missing staff. But the I.D.F. wouldn’t answer. Finally, the U.N., Red Crescent and Civil Defense got access to the site. It took two days to recover the medics’ bodies and vehicles. The Times reviewed autopsies and photographs of the bodies, which showed that most of the victims died from multiple gunshot wounds, including to the neck and torso. Three of the Civil Defense team were shot in the head. A Civil Defense helmet found there showed apparent bullet holes. Two bodies were missing, limbs, possibly shorn by the bulldozers burying them, and almost all of the Red Crescent and Civil Defense were wearing their uniforms in part or in whole. Since the attack, Israel has given shifting versions of events that the evidence contradicts. It initially said the medics were advancing suspiciously, but they never posed a threat. It said that the vehicles were without headlights or emergency signals, but changed that story two weeks later when The Times published Rifaat’s video. It said the area was a combat zone. It wasn’t until the I.D.F. declared it so hours after the attack. It named and said it killed a Hamas participant in Oct. 7. His family told us he’s alive in Gaza and he has no connection to the Red Crescent or Civil Defense. And it took weeks for the I.D.F. to admit it was detaining Asaad al-Nasasra, the medic driving alongside Rifaat, who survived. He was released after 37 days, having been denied access to a lawyer and his family. The I.D.F. has now released the results of its own investigation. It says there was a series of operational misunderstandings that started with misidentifying the first ambulance as a Hamas vehicle, and believing the convoy were Hamas reinforcements. It said Hamas has previously used ambulances. It said the deputy battalion commander, the most senior officer present, was the first to open fire on the convoy. He has been dismissed. But once the shooting started, the other soldiers followed procedure, the I.D.F. told us, even as they fired for six minutes unchallenged. Experts in the laws of war, including Janina Dill of Oxford University, told us that attacking medics who pose no threat is a likely war crime. Another expert, who has long studied attacks on health care, says this is not an isolated incident. “This incident was part of a much larger pattern where U.N. convoys, Doctors Without Borders, ambulances, humanitarian vehicles, have all been shot at multiple times with many people killed and injured.” The I.D.F. is satisfied that nothing needs to change in its orders to soldiers, which it described as excellent. The soldiers involved in this attack were from the Golani Brigade’s elite reconnaissance unit. A recent speech made by a commander of that brigade is an example of the types of orders those soldiers may receive. Even after 50,000 people have been killed in Gaza, this attack drew international condemnation. The agencies the slain medics worked for rejected the I.D.F.’s findings, and have called for an independent investigation.

[EXPLOSION] “The people are running away from the bombing. People are dying. We just send this to the nation to see what is happening in Nuba Mountains.” [GUNSHOTS] “Yeah.” [GUNSHOTS] Sudan is in the grip of a brutal civil war. Eleven million people have been driven from their homes, and tens of thousands have been killed. As a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces — [CRIES] — battles the Sudanese Army for control of the country. The U.N. has accused both sides of abuses. But a six-month investigation by The New York Times shows that the R.S.F. is committing systemic atrocities across Sudan, including ethnic cleansing — — often under the watch of its commanders. The opaque structure of the R.S.F. makes it hard to identify the leaders responsible. But by analyzing dozens of slick propaganda videos, where the commanders are presented as benevolent actors, we mapped out for the first time a command structure of at least 20 key figures and the regions they operate in. R.S.F. fighters under these commanders often film atrocities themselves, evidence that may one day hold perpetrators to account. So The Times teamed up with researchers at C.I.R.‘s Sudan Witness Project to collect these videos as the R.S.F. moved across Sudan. We analyzed fire signals and images collected by satellites, too. We interviewed an R.S.F. commander on the front line. – [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] And we spoke to witnesses to the war by partnering with Ayin Media, a network of reporters working anonymously in Sudan. Taken together, the evidence traces a playbook of terror being waged by the R.S.F. in multiple states. And locates Commanders like these — at or very near the sites of crimes. Sudan has been here before. Almost two decades ago, a notorious militia called the Janjaweed, meaning devils on horseback, carried out a genocide in Darfur. Over 300,000 people were estimated to have been killed. A former Janjaweed commander, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, or Hemeti, now leads the Rapid Support Forces, along with his brother Abdul Rahim as his deputy. And their fighters are using the tactics of Darfur from 20 years ago, in today’s civil war. We documented three broad patterns of abuse — executing unarmed captives, deliberately torching communities and directly abusing civilians, including with sexual violence. R.S.F. fighters can be identified by their uniform. They wear light camouflage, often with a Sudanese flag on one sleeve and a distinctive logo on the other. They sometimes recruit mercenaries and fight alongside loose-knit militias, who are usually in plain clothes. And many have scarves known as kadamols wrapped around their heads. We often hear them use the language of ethnic cleansing. Sudan’s army is also accused of war crimes, including deliberately starving civilians, shelling hospitals and indiscriminate airstrikes. [ROCKET FLYING] As many as 200 people were reportedly killed in airstrikes earlier this month in Darfur. But in this investigation — — we documented abuses by the R.S.F. on a much wider scale — – [IMITATING CATS]: – [IMITATING CATS]: — that may amount to crimes against humanity. One of the commanders we found at the site of several atrocities is Hussein Barsham. He usually directs fighting in the Kordofan region, and that’s where we find him in October 2023, when the R.S.F. seized Baleela Airport and a major oil field nearby. Barsham celebrates by the front of the terminal, but video filmed on the other side shows what their victory looks like — [RAPID GUNFIRE] — fighters executing a group of captives. A warning — these videos are very graphic. So we’ve blurred some scenes. As the person filming enters this parking lot, a gunman is firing into a pile of bodies on the ground. [GUNSHOTS] R.S.F. fighters circle the victims and applaud the killing. Fourteen bodies in total. Many of them are wearing the dark fatigues typical of the Sudanese army, who were defending the airport. They are now unarmed, and to execute them would be a war crime. In addition to our analysis, a doctor with expertise in conflict-related injuries told us there are signs that that’s exactly what happened here. The blood is fresh. Several of the bodies are twitching, indicating they were recently killed. The blood splatter matches the gunshot wounds, and some of the body positions suggest they were killed here, not moved after the fight. Barsham is nearby, showing off the jacket of a Sudanese soldier. A satellite image taken on Oct. 30 shows the execution site, confirming the men were killed on that day. Barsham was just 100 yards away. He’s at the scene, commanding his forces around the time of the executions. Under the laws of war, he may bear responsibility if he ordered this crime or did nothing to prevent it. Eight months later, we found Barsham with three more R.S.F. commanders, Salih Al Futi, Al Taj Al Tijani and a field commander with the nom de guerre John Garang, when their fighters carried out another execution. This time it was in El Fula, the capital of West Kordofan. On June 20, we see a large convoy of R.S.F. fighters rolling into the town. [CHEERING] – [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] They spread out between streets of homes — — brag about men they had killed — — and threaten others taken captive. Hundreds of Sudanese soldiers defending El Fula had fled south earlier that day, and the R.S.F. easily overruns the city. [GUNSHOTS] Barsham is there among them. Al Tijani, too, standing alongside Barsham. And nearby, fighters swarm around Salih Al Futi as he walks. During the attack, the R.S.F. rounds up 20 men and takes them just outside the town. An unidentified fighter says that he recognizes one of the men as an army officer. A few of the men are wearing military fatigues but none of them are armed. Then, just as they did at Baleela Airport, the R.S.F. opened fire. [GUNSHOTS] The field commander, who goes by John Garang, is with them. In the fray, they laud their senior commanders, Al Tijani and Al Futi. Al Tijani, Al Futi and Barsham are not in the videos of these executions. But by analyzing footage of them that day, we know they were less than a mile away. And we know they’re in El Fula around the same time as the executions because the shadows in both sets of videos match. These commanders know each other. They’re repeatedly filmed together in West Kordofan. And in the eight months between the executions at Baleela and El Fula, they appear to have done nothing to stop their fighters’ behavior. One of the war’s most notorious episodes was the execution of the then governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abakar. In June 2023, he was captured by the R.S.F. hours after he publicly criticized the group. Video shows him being forced inside a building by a commander, Abdelrahman Joma Barakallah. This was the last time he was seen alive. Video filmed hours later showed his bloodied body. Governor Abakar’s killing happened during a campaign of ethnic violence targeting his tribe, the Masalit community in El Geneina, the same group the Janjaweed terrorized decades ago. Mariam Mohammed Ismael is among half a million Sudanese who fled the violence to Chad. The R.S.F. laid waste to El Geneina, burning down or destroying close to one quarter of the city’s 300,000 buildings, just as the Janjaweed did decades ago. And they’ve used fire as a method of war across the rest of Darfur and beyond for almost two years. In Kutum, in North Darfur, entire communities have been destroyed since October. Satellite images show no natural fire path between burned homes, and multiple villages are separately burned. These are telltale signs of arson. Hundreds of miles away in Al Takmah, we catch R.S.F. fighters in the act. They’re jubilant — — as homes and shops burn. They destroyed half the town. At a military base the R.S.F. seized in Sidrah, a commander oversees the burning. A fighter walks into view, holding a torch and burning down huts. The one he just passed is now ablaze, and the group gloats as they burn. A field commander named Al Gouja is nearby — — bragging as even more huts go up in flames. Al Gouja is not the only commander implicated in scorched earth tactics. We found four R.S.F. commanders directing attacks during a deadly monthlong assault in North Darfur: Al Nour Al Guba and Geddo Hamdan Abu Shouk, both high-ranking commanders, and Ali Rizkallah and Zeer Salim, both lower-ranking field commanders. For weeks, they oversaw a brutal campaign to capture the state’s capital, El Fasher, from Sudan’s army and forces allied with them. The R.S.F. encircled the city in April. Dozens of outlying villages were torched in attacks targeting the Zaghawa ethnic group. The siege forced a heavily pregnant Ekhlas Adam Ali El Haj to flee her home village of Tawila. She reached the village near Golo Dam. It’s here, in Golo Dam, that we find the first of the North Darfur commanders, Ali Rizkallah, telling passersby not to leave, that they’re safe. The reservoir in Golo Dam was the main water source for the area, serving more than 200,000 people. Rizkallah ordered it to be turned off. Ekhlas escaped again, this time to a school in El Fasher. But the R.S.F. pushed into the city. This is where we see another three commanders on the front line — Zeer Salim, the lower-ranking commander, and Al Guba and Abu Shouk, the senior commanders. An R.S.F. field commander in El Fasher confirmed to us that the senior commanders are in charge. We’re going to focus here on 48 hours on June 1 and 2, when we see these commanders together as a whole neighborhood is torched. Zeer Salim is regularly filmed fighting on the streets with his forces. On June 1, he appears in another video, not fighting this time but giving the call to prayer inside a mosque. We located the mosque to eastern El Fasher. The next day, Zeer Salim is out in the street, just two blocks from the mosque. [GUNSHOTS] That same day, he’s with his superior officers, Al Guba and Abu Shouk, 1,000 feet from the mosque as they rally their troops. All around this area, clusters of buildings were burned down as the R.S.F. took control, and on June 1, even more buildings were torched. The R.S.F. commander denied responsibility and blamed the Sudanese Army bombing. There are some signs of bombardment, but most of the destruction that we analyzed is consistent with the R.S.F. scorched-earth tactics. A mile away from the mosque, a neighborhood the size of 10 city blocks in Manhattan is ablaze that morning. Multiple fires appear to have been ignited around the same time, where members of the Zaghawa ethnic group were believed to be living. This is evidence of a targeted ground-based attack, researchers from the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University say. By August, more than 20,000 structures were damaged or destroyed, many by fire. The devastation is heavily concentrated in the eastern part of the city, the area of R.S.F. advance. Arafa Ali Yagoub was living in this area, and she recalled the R.S.F. terrorizing them before they fled. Her husband was abducted. Arafa was displaced from her home by the Janjaweed when she was a child, and now by the R.S.F. The senior commanders on the ground in El Fasher, Al Guba and Abu Shouk, were both in the Janjaweed and have led R.S.F. forces in North Darfur for years. Abu Shouk is a relative of the R.S.F. leader Hemeti, and he has a history of ethnic violence with Zaghawa rivals, who his forces targeted again in El Fasher. The presence of these high-ranking commanders in El Fasher — — shows the significance of this campaign to the R.S.F., and it unwittingly links them to these atrocities. Ekhlas, Arafa and many thousands more were forced to flee, this time back to Ekhlas’s home in Tawila. When Ekhlas reached her home, even that had been looted. The terror that Ekhlas and Arafa endured in El Fasher is being inflicted on ordinary civilians throughout Sudan. Countless videos show the R.S.F. whipping people. Beating them, sometimes shooting them. [GUNSHOTS] – [IMITATING CATS]: And forcing them to make animal noises. – [IMITATING DONKEYS]: In October, the R.S.F. repeatedly attacked civilians in Gezira State, after Abu Aqla Kaykal, an R.S.F. commander from that area — — defected to Sudan’s army. This triggered a wave of retaliation by the R.S.F. Across Kaykal’s home state. [DYING GROANS] Villages in Gezira were also attacked when Kaykal was in the R.S.F. But this time, they specifically targeted the tribe he was from. Hundreds were killed in a matter of weeks. One of the towns invaded by the R.S.F. is Al Seriha. An R.S.F. commander leading that campaign is Al Gouja, who we saw when huts were torched earlier. Here he is, 300 yards from Al Seriha, shooting at it and directing R.S.F. fighters around him. Once inside, they round up men and hold them. We don’t see what happens next. But the R.S.F. reportedly kills more than 100 people here. Simultaneous attacks were happening in villages right across the eastern Gezira region. In many places, the R.S.F. round up the men of the area or force them to run away at gunpoint. [GUN COCKS] Witnesses we spoke to were terrified. They stole Ammar El Awad Alam’s herd of goats. The R.S.F. emptied Al Seriha and many other villages. And the fighters gloated about their ethnic cleansing. The attacks triggered another exodus. 150,000 people left in two weeks. They are among over eight million people now displaced in Sudan, and millions more who have fled to neighboring countries. Evidence we collected of the R.S.F. rampage in Gezira match multiple accounts of another type of abuse — sexual violence. Survivors have given testimony to experts we interviewed, including Hala Al Karib, head of SIHA, a women’s advocacy group. Her team also received testimonials of rape in several towns in Gezira, particularly around the area that Kaykal was from. Tambul, Rufaa and Azraq are among the villages R.S.F. fighters bragged that they had destroyed. Experts we spoke to said that separating men from their families, as we see in Gezira, is a key indicator of sexual violence. Witnesses rarely talked directly about sexual violence, but they feared for the women and girls in their communities. Hanan Abbakar Al Tahir recalled R.S.F. fighters leering at her in her home in Gezira. They also killed a man for defending women. As Al-Nazeer fled his home, the R.S.F. beat him when he objected to women in his group being harassed. And later, he was shot. Human Rights Watch, the U.N. and other groups have documented sexual violence in at least five states in Sudan since the conflict broke out. Decades on from the genocide in Darfur, just one person has been put on trial at the International Criminal Court. This time, there may be a stronger prospect for accountability. The videos that fighters perceive as trophies of their exploits are regarded by the prosecutor of the I.C.C. as something else — evidence. “So we can piece together the different types of evidence sets that are available now, from phones, from video and audio recordings, that are also proving to be extremely critical to pierce the veil of impunity.” In this investigation, the footage allowed us to find 10 commanders overseeing potential crimes and identify the areas of operation of many more. Their leader, General Dagalo, or Hemeti, may bear ultimate responsibility. Over and over, fighters pay fealty to him. And the field commander we spoke to said that they take orders from the top. In almost two years of war, Hemeti has failed to stop them from carrying out abuses. But there are glimmers of hope. The survivors we spoke to recalled the kindness of strangers, fellow citizens who offered food, shelter or protection as they fled. What they need now is for the violence to end.