Mourners gather around the bodies of 8 Red Crescent emergency responders, recovered in Rafah a week after an Israeli attack, as they are transported for burial from a hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, March 31, 2025.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
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Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
JERUSALEM — An Israeli investigation into the killings of 15 Palestinian medics last month in Gaza by Israeli forces said Sunday it found “professional failures” and a deputy commander will be fired.
Israel at first claimed that the medics’ vehicles did not have emergency signals on when troops opened fire but later backtracked. Cellphone video recovered from one of the medics contradicted Israel’s initial account.
The military investigation found that the deputy battalion commander, “due to poor night visibility,” assessed that the ambulances belonged to Hamas militants. Video footage obtained from the incident shows the ambulances had lights flashing and logos visible as they pulled up to help another ambulance that came under fire earlier. The teams do not appear to be acting unusually or in a threatening manner as three medics emerge and head toward it.
Their vehicles immediately come under a barrage of gunfire that goes on for more than five minutes with brief pauses.
Bodies were buried in a mass grave
Eight Red Crescent personnel, six Civil Defense workers and a U.N. staffer were killed in the shooting before dawn on March 23 by troops conducting operations in Tel al-Sultan, a district of the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Troops…