Israeli field commander fired after military probe finds failures, breach of orders in killing of 15 aid workers

The recent killing of 15 emergency workers by Israeli soldiers was a result of violated orders and operational misunderstandings, Israel's military said on Apr. 20.

A field commander has since been fired and a brigade commander reprimanded.

The findings of the internal investigation were published on Apr. 20, according to The Wall Street Journal.

After ceasefire

The incident took place early on Mar. 23, a few days after Israel ended a two-month ceasefire and began airstrikes in Gaza.

While searching for people injured by an Israeli airstrike in the town of Rafah, an ambulance was attacked by soldiers.

Other ambulances and rescue workers — including a United Nations vehicle — subsequently arrived to search for the missing crew.

But these, too, were struck by Israeli forces, WSJ reported.

The soldiers then used bulldozers to bury the bodies and vehicles on the side of the road.

In total, eight Palestine Red Crescent personnel, six emergency rescue workers, and a UN staffer were killed.

Postmortems on the victims showed gunshots to the head and torso, as well as injuries caused by explosives, The Guardian reported.

"Poor night visibility"

The investigation found that soldiers had incorrectly believed that the first ambulance was a Hamas police vehicle.

They detained and interrogated a survivor, and reported later that they had a Hamas operative in hand.

But this was found to be incorrect.

When the second convoy approached, the Israeli commander opened fire. His soldiers followed suit.

The commander later blamed "poor night visibility", saying that he couldn't identify the vehicles as ambulances, BBC reported.

Finally, when the UN vehicle approached, the same commander fired warning shots.

The other soldiers again followed his lead and fired at the vehicle, killing its passenger.

Originally, Israel claimed that the troops opened fire because the convoy approached "suspiciously" in darkness without headlights or emergency signals.

It later admitted that the account was "mistaken" after a video found on a medic's phone that surfaced showing the vehicles with their lights on and signals  flashing.

"Hamas operatives"

Following an inquiry, the Israel military said that the field commander was fired "for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief".

The brigade commander was also reprimanded for his responsibility over the troops.

It said that firing on the UN vehicle involved a "breach of orders during a combat setting", and that there were "several professional failures" revealed, including a failure to fully report the incident.

However, Israel doubled down on its original allegation that six of the 15 killed were Hamas operatives working as rescue workers.

It said that the "operatives" would later be named.

A surviving medic from the incident remains in detention by the Israel military.

"Universal condemnation"

Previously, Singapore's Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam condemned the killing of the 15 emergency workers.

He criticised the army for "[lying] about it" , and for apparently trying to cover up the soldiers' illegal actions.

"Massacres, lies. Soldiers may do wrong. But the Army as an institution has a higher duty to do the right thing," he said, calling for "universal condemnation".

Top image from AFP