فاس نيوز ميديا جريدة الكترونية جهوية تعنى بشؤون و أخبار جهة فاس مكناس – متجددة على مدار الساعة
Jerusalem/Gaza: The Israeli army has admitted to “professional failures,” “violations of orders,” and a “failure to fully report the incident” that resulted in the deaths of 15 aid workers, including staff from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, civil defense, and UNRWA, in the Tel Sultan area of Rafah. Following an investigation, the army decided to dismiss the commanding officer and remove the deputy commander of a reconnaissance battalion from his position.
Despite acknowledging the operational errors, the army stated in a summary of its investigation: “The soldiers did not engage in indiscriminate fire but remained alert to respond to real threats identified by them.” It added, “No evidence was found to support the claims regarding executions.”
This clarification comes after statements by the head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Younis al-Khatib, who asserted that autopsies showed “all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with intent to kill.”
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and Palestinian aid workers, eight Palestinian Red Crescent staff, six civil defense personnel in Gaza, and one UNRWA employee were killed. Their bodies were found buried in a “mass grave” near the firing site in Tel Sultan, Rafah.
The Israeli army explained that the incident occurred when the rescuers were responding to distress calls from Palestinian civilians near Rafah following an Israeli airstrike in the area. Days after the incident, the army claimed its soldiers fired at “terrorists” approaching them in “suspicious vehicles with their lights off,” a detail later added by the military spokesperson.
On Sunday, the army reiterated its claim that six of the killed rescuers and paramedics were operatives of the Hamas movement, expressing “regret for the harm caused to uninvolved civilians.”
However, a video recovered from the mobile phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Palestinian Red Crescent, contradicts the Israeli army’s account, showing ambulances traveling with their headlights and emergency lights activated.
The army reported three shooting incidents that day. In the first incident, soldiers fired at a vehicle they identified as belonging to Hamas. In the second incident, an hour later, soldiers fired “at suspects exiting a fire truck and ambulances in very close proximity to the area where the forces were operating, after receiving an immediate and tangible threat,” according to the investigation summary. The third incident involved the shooting at a Palestinian UN vehicle “due to operational errors that occurred in violation of instructions,” the army stated.
The investigation concluded that “the firing in the first two incidents resulted from an operational misunderstanding by the forces who believed they were facing a tangible threat from enemy forces,” adding that “the third incident involved a violation of orders in a combat environment.”
The incident has sparked international condemnation and has once again highlighted the dangers faced by aid workers in Gaza, where war has raged since Hamas’s attack on southern Israel in October 2023.
