Gaza paramedics’ killing a ‘mistake’

IDF denies trying to conceal the event

- 

An Israeli military report on the killing of 15 Palestinian emer-gency workers in Gaza admitted on Sunday that mistakes led to their deaths and that a field commander would be dismissed.

But a probe found no evidence of “indiscriminate fire” by troops and maintained that some of those killed were militants. The Palestine Red Crescent denounced the report as “full of lies”.

The medics and other rescue workers were killed when responding to distress calls near the southern Gaza city of Rafah early on March 23, days into Israel’s renewed offensive in the Hamas-run territory.

The incident drew international condemnation, including concern about possible war crimes from UN human rights commissioner Volker Turk.

“The examination identified sev-eral professional failures, breaches of orders and a failure to fully report the incident,’ a summary of the investiga-tion said.

Reserve Maj Gen Yoav Har-Even, who led the investigation, accepted that troops had committed an error.

“We're saying it was a mistake. We don’tthink it’s a daily mistake,” he told journalists when asked if he thought the incident represented a pervasive issue within the Israeli military.