RAMALLAH (Dispatches) – The Palestine Red Crescent rejected the findings of an Israeli military investigation that blamed ‘operational failures’ for the killing of 15 Gaza emergency service workers, denouncing the report as “full of lies.”
“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,” Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Red Crescent, told AFP.
On March 23, fifteen Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers were shot dead near Rafah in southern Gaza.
The deadly shooting of the paramedics and rescue workers from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Gaza’s Civil Defense and a UN staff member by Zionist troops during a rescue mission in southern Gaza on March 23 sparked international outrage and demands for a war crimes investigation.
Their bodies were discovered a week later in a shallow grave by UN officials and the Red Crescent.
A video recovered from a victim’s phone showed uniformed medics and marked ambulances with flashing lights being fired upon by Zionist troops.
On Sunday, the regime’s military said an internal investigation into the incident has “found no evidence to support claims of execution or that any of the deceased were bound before or after the shooting.”
“Such claims are blood libels and false accusations against IDF soldiers,” the military said in a statement, using an acronym for Israel’s Military Forces.
The military’s report labeled the deadly shooting an “operational misunderstanding.”
It said the investigation has “identified several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident.”
As a result, it said, the deputy commander of the military’s Golani Brigade “will be dismissed from his position due to his responsibilities as the field commander … and for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief.”
The military’s report claimed that “poor night visibility” was to blame for the military commander’s conclusion that the ambulances belonged to Hamas and began firing on them.
Medics and forensic experts, who had seen some of the bodies after they were recovered, said there was evidence the men had been shot execution style in the head, and their hands and feet had been tied.