IDF admits failures over killings of Gaza medics

Jerusalem Israel's military has admitted to several "professional failures" and a breach of orders in the killing of 15 rescue workers in Gaza last month, and said it was dismissing a deputy commander responsible.

- Hannah Ellis-Petersen

The deadly shooting of eight Red Crescent paramedics, six civil defence workers and a UN staffer by Israeli troops, as they carried out a rescue mission in southern Gaza at dawn on 23 March, had prompted international outcry and calls for a war crimes investigation.

Their bodies were uncovered days after the shooting, buried in a sandy mass grave alongside their crushed vehicles. The UN said they had been killed "one by one".

Israel at first claimed that the medics' vehicles did not have emergency signals on when troops opened fire but later backtracked after phone video recovered from one of the medics contradicted the account.

Yesterday the military said an investigation had "identified several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident".

As a result, the deputy commander of the IDF'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".

Another commander, whose unit was in operation in the southern city of Rafah where the killings took place, would be censured for "his overall responsibility for the incident", the military said.

Despite admitting mistakes, the report does not recommend any criminal action be taken against the military units responsible for the incident and found no violation of the IDF's code of ethics. The findings of the report will be

now passed to the military attorney general.