An Israeli military investigation concluded Sunday that its troops did not use "indiscriminate fire" in an incident that killed 15 Gaza emergency service personnel but acknowledged failures and announced plans to dismiss a field commander.
The killings occurred in the southern Gaza Strip in the early hours of March 23, just days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-controlled territory.
They sparked international condemnation, including concerns about potential "war crimes" from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk.
Israel insisted that six militants were among the emergency service workers who came under fire near the southern city of Rafah on that day.
"The troops did not engage in indiscriminate fire but remained alert to respond to real threats identified by them," the military said in a summary of the probe.
"The investigation found no evidence to support claims of execution."
Younis Al-Khatib, president of the Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, told journalists in Ramallah around two weeks ago that an autopsy of the victims' bodies revealed that "all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill."
The military acknowledged a failure to fully report the incident and announced the dismissal of the commander responsible.
"The investigation identified several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident," the army said.
It added that a deputy commander "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 probe also concluded that six of the victims were Hamas militants.
'Regrets'
"Fifteen Palestinians were killed, six of whom were identified in a retrospective examination as Hamas terrorists," the military said.
"The [Israeli military] regrets the harm caused to uninvolved civilians," the probe added.
The incident occurred in the early hours while the emergency service providers were responding to distress calls from Palestinian residents near Rafah following an Israeli airstrike in the area, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
Eight Red Crescent staff members, six from the Gaza Civil Defence rescue agency, and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees were killed in the incident, according to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA and Palestinian rescuers.
Days after the incident, the Israeli military said its soldiers fired on "terrorists" approaching them in "suspicious vehicles," with a spokesman later adding that the vehicles had their lights off.
However, a video recovered from the cellphone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appears to contradict the Israeli military's account.
The footage shows ambulances traveling with their headlights on and emergency lights flashing.
The bodies of the victims were found buried near the site of the shooting in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah city, in what OCHA described as a mass grave.
With AFP
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