Israeli military fires deputy commander as it releases findings of investigation into deadly attack on aid workers
The Israeli military has said its investigation into the killing of aid workers in Gaza has found there were “several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident”.
A commanding officer will be reprimanded and a deputy commander will be dismissed following the military investigation, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said.
Fifteen aid workers were shot dead by Israeli troops who opened fire on a convoy of vehicles, including ambulances, on 23 March.
They were then buried in a shallow grave where their bodies were found a week later by officials from the United Nations and the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The probe’s findings come after a Sky News investigation earlier this week revealed how the deadly attack unfolded, contradicting Israel’s official account of the killings.
At first, Israel claimed the medics’ vehicles did not have emergency signals on when troops fired their shots, but later backtracked.
Mobile phone footage which was recovered from one of the medics contradicted Israel’s initial account.
In a statement on Sunday, an IDF spokesperson said: “The Commanding Officer of the 14th Brigade will receive a reprimand, which will be recorded in his personal file, for his overall responsibility for the incident, including the procedure of combat and management of the scene afterward.
“The deputy commander of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion will be dismissed from his position due to his responsibilities as the field commander in this incident and for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief.”
Footage was released of the attack on 23 March
‘Poor night visibility’
The investigation found that the deputy commander did not initially recognise the vehicles as ambulances “due to poor night visibility”, according to the spokesperson.
“Only later, after approaching the vehicles and scanning them, was it discovered that these were indeed rescue teams,” they added.
Probe looked at ‘three shooting incidents’
The IDF said that about an hour before the attack on the convoy, Israeli troops fired at what they “identified as a Hamas vehicle” and the forces “remained on high alert for further potential threats”.
In the convoy incident, the IDF said the soldiers “opened fire on suspects emerging from a fire truck and ambulances very close to the area in which the troops were operating, after perceiving an immediate and tangible threat”.
“Supporting surveillance” had reported five vehicles approaching rapidly and stopping near the troops, with passengers quickly disembarking, according to the IDF.
It said the deputy battalion commander “assessed the vehicles as employed by Hamas forces, who arrived to assist the first vehicle’s passengers”, adding that: “Under this impression and sense of threat, he ordered to open fire.”
According to the IDF, six of the 15 killed were “identified in a retrospective examination as Hamas terrorists”.
But the Sky News investigation found no evidence to support this claim.
The IDF also said there was a third incident about 15 minutes later where “the troops fired at a Palestinian UN vehicle due to operational errors in breach of regulations”.
“The troops’ commander initially reported the event, and additional details emerged later in the examination.”
Bodies were buried in mass grave
Eight Red Crescent personnel, six civil defence workers and a UN staff member were killed in the shooting on the convoy by troops carrying out operations in Tel al Sultan, a district of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Troops then bulldozed over the bodies along with their mangled vehicles, burying them in a mass grave.
‘Decision to crush vehicles was wrong’
The IDF statement said that at dawn it was decided to “gather and cover the bodies to prevent further harm and clear the vehicles from the route in preparation for civilian evacuation”.
The body removal and vehicle crushing were carried out by field commanders, according to the military.
Removing the bodies was reasonable under the circumstances, but the decision to crush the vehicles was wrong, the investigation concluded, and “in general there was no attempt to conceal the event”.
The probe also found that “the [gun]fire in the first two incidents resulted from an operational misunderstanding by the troops, who believed they faced a tangible threat from enemy forces. The third incident involved a breach of orders during a combat setting”.
It has been an extraordinary few hours which may well set the tone for a hugely consequential week ahead.
In the time that it took me to fly from London to Saudi Arabia, where President Donald Trump will begin a pivotal Middle East tour this week, a flurry of news has emerged on a range of key global challenges.
• On the Gaza war: The Trump administration has confirmed it’s holding talks with Hamas, which says it will release a hostage amid renewed hopes of a ceasefire.
• On the Ukraine war: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is prepared to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Istanbul – this announcement came minutes after Trump urged Zelenskyy to agree to the meeting.
• On the China-US trade war: The White House says the two countries have agreed to a “trade deal”. China said the talks, in Geneva, were “candid, in-depth and constructive”.
All three of these developments represent dramatic shifts in three separate challenges and hint at the remarkable influence the US president is having globally.
This sets the ground for what could be a truly consequential week for Trump’s presidency and his ability to effect change.
With his unique style, Trump is seeking to align numerous stars as he embarks on his first foreign diplomatic trip of his second presidency.
For days, it’s been unclear how the week ahead would unfold and which global challenge would be dominant.
The Saudi government has been instrumental as a broker in the Ukraine-Russia conflict and Qatar has been a mediator in the Gaza war.
Trump will visit both countries this week.
President Donald Trump on Air Force One earlier this month. File pic: AP
👉 Follow Trump100 on your podcast app 👈
Putin under pressure?
On Ukraine, Putin held a late-night news conference at the Kremlin on Saturday at which he made the surprise proposal of talks with Zelenskyy in Istanbul this Thursday.
But he rejected European and US calls for an immediate ceasefire.
The move was widely interpreted as a delay tactic.
Trump then issued a social media post urging Zelenskyy to accept the Russian proposal; effectively to call Putin’s bluff.
The American president wrote: “President Putin of Russia doesn’t want to have a Cease Fire Agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY. At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the U.S., will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly! I’m starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin, who’s too busy celebrating the Victory of World War ll, which could not have been won (not even close!) without the United States of America. HAVE THE MEETING, NOW!!!”
Within minutes, Zelenskyy responded, agreeing to the talks.
“We await a full and lasting ceasefire, starting from tomorrow, to provide the necessary basis for diplomacy. There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will be waiting for Putin in Türkiye on Thursday. Personally. I hope that this time the Russians will not look for excuses,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
The prospect of Putin and Zelenskyy together in Istanbul on Thursday is remarkable.
It raises the possibility that Trump would want to be there too.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomes other world leaders to Kyiv. Pic: Presidential Office of Ukraine/dpa/AP Images
Israel’s war in Gaza
On Gaza, it’s been announced that US envoy Steve Witkoff will arrive in Israel on Monday to finalise details for the release of Idan Alexander, an Israeli-American hostage being held by Hamas.
The development comes after it was confirmed that Mr Witkoff has been holding discussions with Israel, Qatar and Egypt and, through them, with Hamas.
The talks focused on a possible Gaza hostage deal and larger peace discussions for a ceasefire.
Read more:
Trump faces criticism over Kashmir post
Pope addresses major wars in first Sunday message
Gaza after around a year and a half of Israeli attacks. Pic: Reuters/Mahmoud Issa
Just days ago, Israel announced a new military plan to move back into Gaza.
When do candid talks become a trade deal?
Meanwhile, officials from the United States and China have been holding talks in Geneva, Switzerland, to resolve their trade war, which was instigated by Trump’s tariffs against China.
Late on Sunday evening, the White House released a statement claiming that a trade deal had been struck.
In a written statement, titled “U.S. Announces China Trade Deal in Geneva”, treasury secretary Scott Bessent said: “I’m happy to report that we made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks… We will be giving details tomorrow, but I can tell you that the talks were productive. We had the vice premier, two vice ministers, who were integrally involved, Ambassador Jamieson, and myself. And I spoke to President Trump, as did Ambassador Jamieson, last night, and he is fully informed of what is going on. So, there will be a complete briefing tomorrow morning.”
Beijing Global Times newspaper quoted the Chinese vice premier as saying that the talks were candid, in-depth and constructive.
However, the Chinese fell short of calling it a trade deal.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
A Qatari gift
In a separate development, US media reports say that Qatar is preparing to gift Trump a Boeing 747 from its royal fleet, which he would use as a replacement for the existing and aging Air Force One plane.
The Qatari government says no deal has been finalised, but the development is already causing controversy because of the optics of accepting gifts of this value.
Of all the fronts in Donald Trump’s trade war, none was as dramatic and economically threatening as the sky-high tariffs he imposed on China.
There are a couple of reasons: first, because China is and was the single biggest importer of goods into the US and, second, because of the sheer height of the tariffs imposed by the White House in recent months.
In short, tariffs of over 100% were tantamount to a total embargo on goods coming from the United States’ main trading partner. That would have had enormous economic implications, not just for the US but every other country around the world (these are the world’s biggest and second-biggest economies, after all).
Trump latest: US and China slash tariffs in trade war de-escalation
So the truce announced on Monday by treasury secretary Scott Bessent is undoubtedly a very big deal indeed.
In short, China will still face an extra 30% tariffs (the 20% levies cast as punishment for China’s involvement in fentanyl imports and the 10% “floor” set on “Liberation Day”) on top of the residual 10% average from the Biden era.
But the rest of the extra tariffs will be paused for 90 days. China, in turn, has suspended its own retaliatory tariffs on the US.
The market has responded as you would probably have expected, with share prices leaping in relief. But that raises a question: is the trade war now over? Now that the two sides have blinked, can globalisation continue more or less as it had before?
That, it turns out, is a trickier and more complex question than it might first seem.
Pic: AP
For one thing, even if one were to assume this is a permanent truce rather than a suspended one, it still leaves tariffs considerably higher than they were only last year. And China faces tariffs far higher than most other countries (tot up the existing ones and the Trump era ones and China faces average tariffs of around 40%, while the average for most countries is between 8% and 14%, according to Capital Economics).
In other words, the US is still implementing an economic policy designed to increase the cost of doing business with China, even if it no longer attempts to prevent it altogether. The fact that last week’s trade agreement with the UK contains clauses seemingly designed to encourage it to raise trade barriers against China for reasons of “security” only reinforces this suspicion. The trade war is still simmering, even if it’s no longer as hot as it was a few days ago.
Read more:
US-UK trade deal ‘isn’t worth the paper it’s written on’
Key details in ‘historic’ US-UK trade deal
And more broadly, the deeper impact of the trade rollercoaster in recent months is unlikely to disappear altogether. Companies remain more nervous about investing in factories and expansions in the face of such deep economic instability. No-one is entirely sure the White House won’t just U-turn once again.
That being said, it’s hard not to escape the conclusion that the US president has blinked in this trade war. In the face of a potential recession, he has pulled back from the scariest and most damaging of his tariffs, earlier and to a greater extent than many had expected.
World
Zelenskyy’s offer to meet Putin raises the stakes in this already high-stakes game of diplomacy
Diplomacy over Ukraine has become even more of a game of high-stakes poker.
In the early hours of Sunday, Vladimir Putin played his hand, rejecting demands for a ceasefire and proposing direct talks in Istanbul instead.
Read more:
Trump says Ukraine should ‘immediately’ agree to direct talks with Russia
Ukraine ‘ready to meet’ Russia after Putin calls for peace talks
That was in response to the opening gambit made on Saturday by Ukraine and its European allies.
Sir Keir Starmer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Emmanuel Macron among world leaders in Kyiv. Pic: AP
Britain’s Sir Keir Starmer said they were “calling Putin out”, that if he was really serious about peace, he should agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire starting on Monday.
And they thought they had Donald Trump’s backing until he made his move.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Kremlin: ‘We don’t share Starmer’s view’
Late Sunday, he drove a cart and horses through claims of western unity, coming down on Putin’s side.
Ukraine, he said, should submit to the Russian leader’s suggestion of talks.
“Ukraine should agree to this – immediately”, he posted. Then: “I’m starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin…”
So much for the Coalition of the Willing having Putin where they wanted him.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Are Putin’s call for peace talks genuine?
Trump let him off the hook.
All eyes were then on President Zelenskyy, who has now in turn dramatically raised the stakes.
He will go to Istanbul, he said, and wait there for Vladimir Putin.
Over to you, Vladimir.
Read more:
Russia’s VE Day parade felt like celebration of war
Michael Clarke Q&A on Ukraine war
The fast-paced diplomacy aside, the last twenty-four hours have brought Europe closer to a moment of truth.
They thought they had Donald Trump’s support, and yet even with 30 nations demanding an unconditional ceasefire, the US president seemed, in the end, to side with the Russian leader.
He has helped Putin get out of a hole.
Yet again, Trump could not be counted on to pressure Vladimir Putin to end this war.
If America is no longer a reliable partner over Ukraine, Europe may need to go it alone, whatever the cost.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway