Dnipro, Ukraine, Sep 2025
I wake up to the house shaking, with only a couple of hours sleep due to an extensive air raid last night I should be feeling wrecked but waking up to the sound of a missile strike will get that adrenaline going. The other guys are already getting their gear on when the sound of several consecutive jets fly over us, followed by several house rattling explosions, they’re certainly striking close enough to where we live. The strength of the explosions mean these definitely aren’t the Iranian shahed or russian geran drones that were hitting Dnipro over last night, you wouldn’t hear an incoming ballistic missiles before they hit. This is my first time experiencing the kalibr, a cruise missile in russia’s arsenal.
We arrive at the scene of the main strike, an apartment building, debris all over the surrounding area alongside the very real possibility that cluster munitions may have been dropped as well. Ukrainian first responders are already on scene, police coordinating a cordon and managing traffic, an estimated 14 ambulances from the local service from what I could see and several fire trucks. We coordinate with local ambos and get a couple of patients, assess them and do some preliminary treatment before transporting to the hospital we were advised to go to. During this time, we were under no illusion that russia could strike the area again in what is known as a “double tap”. The situation certainly presented a target for the russians but we were fortunate it wasn’t the case that day and the first responders who arrived to assist would be able to go home safely.
What is a Double Tap?
A double tap strike, normally in the context of a strike against civilians or civilian infrastructure is an initial strike followed by a secondary, with a deliberate delay to also attack responding emergency services or others who have arrived to help the initial casualties, normally other civilians nearby. These strikes can be accomplished with missiles, drones, artillery or any kind of long-range weapon. In almost every case, these kinds of strikes are war crimes, the deliberate targeting of civilians and most egregiously medical personnel. In a wider conflict they do also facilitate impacting the morale of the people targeted, acting as a weapon of terror.
Double tap strikes are not limited to any rules or laws, there isn’t a specific timeframe for two consecutive strikes to be considered a double tap and it isn’t necessarily limited to two. Ukrainian emergency services would become wary of the risk of a double tap, so once a double tap had occurred the expectation for responders would be that they were clear of danger to respond. (for the purposes of this blog I have tried to find the specific information on this strike but with the number of articles and posts about russian strikes and double taps there is a lot of information to sift through to find it so there isn’t a specific source for my post, hopefully can update it in future) In one incident, Ukrainian first responders began to enter the scene after the double tap (second strike), in this instance russian forces would fire a third strike at the scene, causing a third set of casualties in a particularly sinister attack.
Double Tap Strikes, from Russia to Israel
Although russian strikes against civilian targets and the ensuing double taps received global media attention, this coverage has dropped off over the years since the initial full-scale invasion in 2022. In an ideal world these attacks would still get extensive coverage, but a combination of fatigue in the media and an acclimatising audience to stories that were initially horrifying but became the new normal or expectation, reduces attention and shock value. The 24 hour news cycle and the graphic content that is available on social media from war zones also have their part to play but that is a topic for another time.
These articles below document the history of some of these strikes with PBS describing a double tap in Pokrovsk 2023, BBC covering strikes in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia 2024, the Kyiv Post outlining a devastating double tap in Odessa from 2024 and Kyiv Independent reporting on a double tap in Nikopol in 2025. These strikes have been a consistent tactic and weapon of terrorism used by russia throughout the full-scale invasion.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/russia-accused-of-targeting-rescue-workers-with-double-tap-missile-strike
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68761490
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/29565
https://kyivindependent.com/russian-double-tap-attack-injures-5-including-emergency-workers-in-nikopol/
A comprehensive resource on russian strikes on civilians and double taps in Ukraine is the organisation ‘Truth Hounds’ who have been operating since 2014, working to uncover international crimes and human rights violations, primarily in Ukraine. Double tap strikes by Russia are comprehensively covered in their study ‘Cruelty Cascade: Examining the Pattern of Russian Double-Tap Strikes in Ukraine’, providing evidence of the deliberate nature of these strikes against emergency personnel and civilians. In relation to a strike in Kharkiv, Truth Hounds highlights comments from a russian Telegram channel…
“In their commentary on the deaths of the head of the Kharkiv District Department of the SES in Kharkiv Oblast and the police officers, the channel’s authors asserted that this incident is ‘not the first instance demonstrating the effectiveness of double-tap strikes on locations engaged in managing the consequences of initial attacks’.”
https://truth-hounds.org/en/cases/cruelty-cascade/#
Mayfadoun, Lebanon, April 2026
An Israeli air strike has caused some casualties after hitting a building in southern Lebanon and the call goes out for assistance. Ambulance services in the area aren’t covered by a single state service but a number of separate volunteer organisations. Israel has already attacked paramedics and ambulances under the justification that they aren’t civilian or medical vehicles and are transporting weapons and ammunition for Hezbollah. This happens to be the same justification that pro-russian accounts on social media have disseminated for striking ambulances in Ukraine. Double tap strikes have been a common occurrence since Israel launched an offensive into Southern Lebanon and Gaza although it doesn’t attract the same attention as russian strikes in Ukraine until this day in April.
Although paramedics are wary of the risk of double taps, an ambulance from the Islamic Health Association (IHA) heads out to respond to the strike, shortly after, the double tap hits. A second ambulance from the IHA heads to the location in Mayfadoun to assist with the wounded and are hit by a third strike. At this stage in the count, it matches the number of strikes for a triple tap that russia also accomplished in Ukraine. With a second crew of paramedics injured, two ambulances from the Risala Scout Association and Nabatieh Ambulance Service attend the scene. It is at this point that the gopro worn by paramedic Fadel Hamadi captured the footage that spread around the globe across traditional and social media. Two destroyed ambulances from the previous crews on scene, Hamadi and his colleagues load the casualties into their own ambulances. Mahdi Abu Zaid, loads a 2nd casualty into the ambulance, Hamadi is holding an oxygen mask over a patient’s face, the rear door is slammed shut. A few seconds later another explosion outside the ambulance, shrapnel enters the rear of the vehicle and the windows are blown in.
The Fourth and final strike, Abu Zaid is seen screaming in the footage, shrapnel penetrating his abdomen, he will succumb to his injuries. Three other paramedics were killed and 6 wounded in the attack which may also hold the unofficial record of the first quadruple tap. In the same cynical way that russia has openly attacked civilians and first responders in Ukraine, Israel’s quadruple tap is an appalling example of the impunity that the state has to strike civilians and medical staff. As of the 17th of April, 91 healthcare workers have been killed and 214 wounded since March 2nd according to the Guardian, in relation to the documented double taps, strikes on hospitals and the quadruple tap, it’s a campaign of terror and dismantling of the health system.
In some media about the attack it has been described as a triple tap, it is in fact a quadruple tap as it counts the initial strike.
Sydney, Australia April 2026
With the experience I had in Ukraine and working back in Australia as a paramedic, it was one thing to see footage coming out of Gaza and Lebanon of medical workers being killed. I’d certainly been desensitised to the news of people being killed after working in Ukraine but the brazen nature of a quadruple tap just got to me. A state can always find a reason to justify it and there will be plenty of people who will blindly accept it. Russia and Israel are both particularly good at utilising their media and propagating a message over social media to justify their actions. With so much bullshit on all sides in conflict immoral actions still exist and it’s important to highlight them and when multiple nations use the same tactics and justification for those tactics, speaking about it can only help to shine a light on it.
Below are articles about the quadruple tap that I used for this post
https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/4/16/israels-military-kills-four-lebanese-paramedics-in-consecutive-strikes
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/lebanon-paramedics-strike-9.7173448
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/16/israel-escalates-attacks-on-medics-in-lebanon-with-deadly-quadruple-tap
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgqkkxd09e2o