Israel says Gaza medics' killing a 'mistake', to dismiss commander

An Israeli military report on the killing of 15 Palestinian emergency workers in Gaza admitted Sunday that mistakes led to their deaths and that a field commander would be dismissed.

But a probe found no evidence of "indiscriminate fire" by troops and maintained that some of those killed were militants. The Palestine Red Crescent denounced the report as "full of lies".

The medics and other rescue workers were killed when responding to distress calls near the southern Gaza city of Rafah early on March 23, days into Israel's renewed offensive in the Hamas-run territory.

The incident drew international condemnation, including concern about possible war crimes from UN human rights commissioner Volker Turk.

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"The examination identified several professional failures, breaches of orders and a failure to fully report the incident," a summary of the investigation said.

Reserve Major General Yoav Har-Even, who led the investigation, accepted that troops had committed an error.

"We're saying it was a mistake. We don't think it's a daily mistake," he told journalists when asked if he thought the incident represented a pervasive issue within the Israeli military.

Those killed included eight Red Crescent staff members, six from the Gaza civil defence rescue agency and one employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, according to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA and Palestinian rescuers.

Their bodies were found about a week later, buried in the sand alongside their crushed vehicles in Rafah's Tal al-Sultan area.

OCHA described it as a mass grave.

Younis al-Khatib, president of the Palestine Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has said an autopsy of the victims revealed that "all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill".

The military rejected his accusation.

"The examination found no evidence to support claims of execution or that of any of the deceased were bound before or after the shooting," the probe said, amid allegations that some of the bodies had been found handcuffed.

"The troops did not engage in indiscriminate fire but remained alert to respond to real threats identified by them," it said, adding that six of the 15 were "identified in a retrospective examination as Hamas terrorists".

It had earlier said nine of those killed were militants.

"The IDF (military) regrets the harm caused to uninvolved civilians," the probe added, without providing evidence that six of the men were militants.

Har-Even acknowledged that no weapons were found on the dead men.

The Palestine Red Crescent rejected the investigation findings.

"The report is full of lies. It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different," spokesperson Nebal Farsakh told AFP.

'No attempt to conceal'

After the incident, the army said its soldiers had fired on "terrorists" approaching them in "suspicious vehicles". A spokesman later added that the vehicles had their lights off.

But a video recovered from the cellphone of one slain aid worker, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account.

The footage shows ambulances travelling with their headlights on and emergency lights flashing.

The military acknowledged an operational failure by its forces to fully report the incident, but reiterated earlier statements that Israeli troops buried the bodies and vehicles "to prevent further harm".

"There was no attempt to conceal the event," it said.

"We don't lie," military spokesman Effie Defrin said on Sunday.

The Red Crescent's Farsakh, however, said her organisation was denied access to the site for five days.

The military said a deputy commander "will be dismissed from his position due to his responsibilities as the field commander in this incident and for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief".

'Breach of orders'

The military said there were three shooting incidents in the area on that day.

In the first, soldiers shot at what they believed to be a Hamas vehicle.

In the second, around an hour later, troops fired "on suspects emerging from a fire truck and ambulances", the military said.

"The deputy battalion commander assessed the vehicles as employed by Hamas forces, who arrived to assist the first vehicle's passengers. Under this impression and sense of threat, he ordered to open fire."

The third incident saw the troops firing at a UN vehicle "due to operational errors in breach of regulations", the military said.

The probe determined that the fire in the first two incidents resulted from an "operational misunderstanding by the troops".

The UN said in April that after the team of first responders was killed, other emergency and aid teams were hit one after another over several hours while searching for their missing colleagues.

Mundhir Abed, a medic from the Red Crescent Society who survived the attack, told AFP he was beaten and interrogated by Israeli troops.

Another medic also survived, with the military confirming Sunday he was in custody.

"Since the incident occurred by mistake, as the report claims, why does the occupation continue to detain the paramedic?" Farsakh asked, adding they were only informed he was being held days later by the Red Cross and that "the occupation has not yet clarified" where.