The Israeli military has released details of an investigation into its own killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics and aid workers in Gaza last month, saying its code of ethics was not violated and only one soldier is dismissed, in an attack that sparked outrage in the international community.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and the Israeli rights organisation Breaking the Silence rejected the findings of the Israeli probe on Sunday.
PRCS’s president told Al-Araby TV that the Israeli narrative on the killings in Rafah was “contradictory”.
“It is incomprehensible why the occupation soldiers buried the bodies of the paramedics in a criminal manner,” Younis al-Khatib said.
Al-Khatib added that the Israeli army communicated with the paramedics before killing them and that the evidence – including a video showing their ambulances flashing emergency lights – proved “the falsity of the occupation’s narrative regarding the limited visibility at the site”.
“An independent and impartial investigation must be conducted by a UN body,” he said.
PRCS, which had medics killed by Israel in the incident, also denounced the Israeli report as “full of lies” on Sunday. “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,” Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the organisation, told the AFP news agency.
The PRCS said last week that it received confirmation from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that one of its medics who was missing is being held by Israel.
🚨Urgent: We have been informed by the International Committee of the Red Cross that PRCS medic Assad Al-Nsasrah is being held by the Israeli occupation authorities. His fate had remained unknown since he was targeted along with other PRCS medics in #Rafah.
📢We call on the… pic. twitter. com/l0oOxujS8G
The Israeli army on Sunday claimed that six of the aid workers who were killed and buried in a shallow mass grave along with their ambulances were Hamas “terrorists”, without providing any evidence.
It admitted its probe detected a series of “professional failures”, including partial and inaccurate reporting by the commanding officers in the field invading southern Gaza’s Rafah.
The deputy commander of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion will be dismissed, while the commanding officer of the 14th Brigade is to receive a reprimand.
The examination also found “no evidence to support claims of execution or that any of the deceased were bound before or after the shooting”, despite the testimonies and the evidence.
The Israeli military had initially claimed that the ambulances and aid workers were not clearly marked as first responders and approached its troops “suspiciously”.
A mobile phone video recorded by one of the killed aid workers that was obtained by the New York Times showed that the crew were clearly marked and visible to Israeli forces, and were killed by Israeli fire that lasted several minutes.
United Nations and Palestinian officials later found the mass grave and the bulldozed ambulances and bodies after Israeli authorities granted access to the area of the mostly destroyed city of Rafah bordering Egypt.
‘Another day, another cover-up’
The Israeli anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence said the military investigation is “riddled with contradictions, vague phrasing, and selective details”.
“Not every lie has a video to expose it, but this report doesn’t even attempt to engage with the truth,” the group said. “Another day, another cover-up. More innocent lives taken, with no accountability. ”
But far-right voices in the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believe the army is going too far in punishing the soldiers.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s ultranationalist national security minister, said the decision to dismiss the deputy commander was a “grave mistake” that must be reversed.
“Our combat soldiers, who are sacrificing their lives in Gaza, deserve our full support,” he said.
‘Report invites many questions’
Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Nice told Al Jazeera that the findings of the probe raise questions about the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza and the thoroughness of the investigative process.
“It’s a pretty surprising document. It’s also a document that invites many questions that it will be difficult, I suspect, for the [Israeli military] to answer,” Nice said in a television interview.
“For example, [there is] the proposition that six of these people were Hamas, presumably members of Hamas on active [military] service, not people who might have been associated with Hamas in some way. No documentary evidence at all is identified [for that]. ”
Israel has a track record of denying accusations of wrongdoing and contradicting its own earlier statements.
Past investigations have exonerated the armed forces or placed the blame on a single individual without broader repercussions.
The UN accused the Israeli military of being responsible for the killing of the 15 aid workers, along with the killing of a Bulgarian UN staff member and wounding of six other foreign staff in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah last month.
