JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The Israeli military said on Sunday that a review into the killing of 15 emergency responders in Gaza last month found professional failures and violations of orders but no attempt to conceal the incident.
The paramedics and emergency workers were shot dead on March 23 near the southern Gaza city of Rafah and buried in a shallow grave where their bodies were found a week later by officials from the United Nations and the Palestinian Red Crescent.
A commanding officer is to be reprimanded and a deputy commander dismissed, the military said.
“The examination identified several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident,” the military said in a statement.
“The examination determined that the fire in the first two incidents resulted from an operational misunderstanding by the troops, who believed they faced a tangible threat from enemy forces. The third incident involved a breach of orders during a combat setting,” it added.
The military said the deputy commander had ordered troops to open fire on individuals emerging from vehicles that were later determined to be a fire truck and several ambulances.
An hour earlier, soldiers had fired on another vehicle that they believed belonged to Hamas and the deputy commander perceived there to be a threat, the military said.
According to the military, the deputy commander was not able to recognise the vehicles in the second incident as ambulances “due to poor night visibility”.
Fifteen Palestinians were killed in the incident. The military has said, without providing evidence, that six of them were “Hamas terrorists”.
A video recovered from the mobile phone of one of the dead men and published by the Palestinian Red Crescent showed emergency workers in their uniforms and clearly marked ambulances and fire trucks, with their lights on, being fired on by soldiers.
About 15 minutes after the soldiers opened fire on the group of emergency responders, the military said that soldiers fired at a Palestinian UN vehicle. The military said there had been “operational errors in breach of regulation”
The military said that a commanding officer would be reprimanded for his “overall responsibility for the incident”. A deputy commander would be dismissed from his position due to being the field commander and for providing an “incomplete and inaccurate report” of the incident.
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Giles Elgood)
