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The UN’s humanitarian agency, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and Gaza’s civil defence service have rejected the findings of an Israeli military investigation that concluded the killings of 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers in Rafah last month were caused by “professional failures”.
Eight Palestine Red Crescent paramedics, six members of the civil defence rescue agency and one employee of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, were carrying out two rescue missions when they were shot and killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza in the early hours of 23 March.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at first claimed the medics’ vehicles were not using emergency signals when troops opened fire, but backtracked after mobile phone footage emerged contradicting the account. On Sunday, it said an internal investigation had “identified several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident”.
Gaza’s civil defence agency, which rescues victims of airstrikes, dismissed the Israeli army report, accusing the military of lying in an attempt to justify targeting the rescue convoys.
“The video filmed by one of the paramedics proves that the Israeli occupation’s narrative is false and demonstrates that it carried out summary executions,” Mohammed al-Mughair, a civil defence official, told Agence-France Presse on Monday, accusing Israel of seeking to “circumvent” its obligations under international law.
Jonathan Whittall, the UN’s humanitarian chief for Gaza, said the investigation did not go far enough. “A lack of real accountability undermines international law and makes the world a more dangerous place,” he said.
“Without accountability, we risk continuing to watch atrocities unfolding, and the norms designed to protect us all eroding.”
Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the PRCS, said: “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.”
The PRCS has previously called for an international investigation into the incident.
Sunday’s IDF report said the deputy commander of the Golani Brigade would be dismissed owing to his responsibilities in the field and for “providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief”. Another commander, whose unit was also operating in the area, would be disciplined for “his overall responsibility for the incident”, the military said.
According to the IDF, soldiers fired on the humanitarian workers travelling in ambulances and a fire truck because of “poor night visibility” and soldiers then violated orders by shooting at a UN vehicle which drove past 15 minutes later, resulting in the death of the driver.
The bodies and vehicles were put in a sandy mass grave that could not be accessed by a UN retrieval team until several days later, after which the UN said the medics had been killed “one by one” and two witnesses claimed at least one victim had his hands and feet bound.
Postmortem results released last week showed that the men were mostly killed by “gunshots to the head and torso” as well as injuries caused by explosives, and none of the victims had visible signs of restraint.
The army denied that there had been “indiscriminate fire” and maintains that six of the killed men were Hamas militants, allegations the humanitarian agencies involved deny. None of those killed were armed.
During 18 months of war Israeli forces have killed hundreds of medical workers and the staff of aid agencies and UN organisations in Gaza. In April last year, seven members of the charity World Central Kitchen died in a sustained Israeli attack on their clearly marked vehicles.
Human rights organisations have long accused the Israeli military of a culture of impunity, with few soldiers ever facing justice. In 2023, fewer than 1% of complaints made against Israeli troops in the occupied Palestinian territories ended in a conviction, according to the latest US state department annual human rights report.
Dan Owen, a researcher who analyses army data for Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din, said the vast majority of incidents go unreported.
The IDF is yet to respond to a Yesh Din request made in June 2024 under freedom of information laws regarding the number of investigations and indictments in cases in which soldiers are suspected of harming civilians in the war in Gaza.
In August last year, the military said it had received approximately 1,000 complaints filed by lawyers and human rights groups related to the Gaza war, and had opened 74 investigations. Four concerned the deaths of Palestinians held in Israeli detention, eight concerned allegations of torture in prisons, and the rest were related to property damage and theft.
