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”.
Pro-Western candidate Nicusor Dan has unexpectedly beaten hard-right populist George Simion in the Romanian presidential election.
Mr Simion, 38, and his rival – a centrist who’s mayor of Bucharest – faced off in the second round of the contest.
According to the official tally, Mr Dan was leading by nearly nine percentage points with more than 98% of the votes counted.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Dan and his supporters celebrated the exit polls. Pic: Reuters
After exit polls suggested he wasn’t going to win, Trump-supporting Mr Simion rejected the result and said estimates put him 400,000 votes ahead.
Speaking after voting ended, Mr Simion said his election was “clear” as he posted on Facebook: “I won!!! I am the new President of Romania and I am giving back the power to the Romanians!”
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George Simion on Trump, the EU – and his message to UK
Romania’s last election was annulled after its highest court ruled the leading candidate, nationalist Calin Georgescu, should be disqualified due to claims of electoral interference by Russia.
The result is surprising because in the first round, 38-year-old Mr Simion, founder of the right-wing Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), took 40.96% of the vote – almost 20 points ahead.
George Simion rejected the polls but official counting saw him slip behind. Pic: Reuters
Supporters of Mr Dan celebrated on the streets of the capital Bucharest. Pic: AP
An opinion poll on Friday had it much closer, but still suggested the two men were virtually tied.
Mr Dan, a 55-year-old mathematician, is running as an independent and has pledged to clamp down on corruption.
He is also staunchly pro-EU and NATO, and has said Romania’s support for Ukraine is vital for its own security.
When voting closed at 9pm local time, 11.6 million people – about 64% of eligible voters – had cast ballots. About 1.64 million Romanians living abroad also took part.
About 11.6 million people – 64% of eligible voters – cast ballots. Pic: AP
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The election is being closely watched across Europe amid a rise of support for President Donald Trump.
After polls closed, Mr Dan said “elections are not about politicians” but about communities and that in the latest vote “a community of Romanians has won, a community that wants a profound change in Romania”.
“When Romania goes through difficult times, let us remember the strength of this Romanian society,” he said.
“There is also a community that lost today’s elections. A community that is rightly outraged by the way politics has been conducted in Romania up to now.”
Israel has said it will allow a “basic quantity of food” into the besieged enclave of Gaza to avoid a “starvation crisis” following a near three-month blockade.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the decision was “based on the operational need to enable the expansion of the military operation to defeat Hamas”.
Gaza, where local authorities say more than 53,000 people have died in Israel’s 19-month campaign, has been under a complete blockade on humanitarian aid since 2 March.
It comes as global food security experts warn of famine across the territory and after a UN-backed report issued last Monday which warned one in five people in Gaza were facing starvation.
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Israel ramps up bombing in Gaza
The statement from the prime minister’s office said it would “allow a basic quantity of food to be brought in for the population in order to make certain that no starvation crisis develops in the Gaza Strip”.
“Such a crisis would endanger the continuation of Operation ‘Gideon’s Chariots’ to defeat Hamas,” it added.
“Israel will act to deny Hamas’s ability to take control of the distribution of humanitarian assistance in order to ensure that the assistance does not reach the Hamas terrorists.”
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Gaza is ‘a slaughterhouse’ says surgeon
It comes after a British surgeon working in Gaza said in a video to Sky News the enclave is now “a slaughterhouse” amid Israeli bombardment.
Israel has just ramped up its offensive in Gaza, with Palestinian health officials reporting at least 130 people were killed overnight into Sunday.
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed troops had begun “extensive ground operations throughout the northern and southern Gaza Strip”.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 464 people had died in Israeli military strikes in the week to Sunday.
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In a statement on Sunday, IDF said its air force struck “over 670 Hamas terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip to disrupt enemy preparations and support ground operations” over the past week.
Israel has launched an escalation to increase pressure on Hamas, seize territory, displace Palestinians to the south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.
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A British surgeon working in southern Gaza has compared the region to a “slaughterhouse” because of the daily bombardment from Israeli forces.
Dr Tom Potokar, who is based at the European Hospital near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, offered his assessment of Israel’s military offensive after Palestinian health officials reported at least 130 people were killed overnight into Sunday.
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have confirmed their troops have begun “extensive ground operations throughout the northern and southern Gaza Strip”.
In a video, Dr Potokar said it was “another day of devastation here in Gaza”, adding: “The stories coming from the north… absolutely horrific… particularly around the Indonesian Hospital.”
“I mean, it’s difficult to describe in words what’s happening here… [with the] constant sound of bombardment jets overhead.
“If Cambodia was the killing fields, then Gaza now is the slaughterhouse.”
Mourners at a funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, at Al Shifa hospital, in Gaza. Pic: Reuters
His reference to Cambodia’s killing fields refers to when more than a million people were murdered in mass executions and buried by the extreme communist guerrilla group, the Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, between 1975 and 1979.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 464 people had died in Israeli military strikes in the week to Sunday.
In a statement on Sunday, IDF said its air force struck “over 670 Hamas terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip to disrupt enemy preparations and support ground operations” over the past week.
A family in grief at a funeral on Sunday in Deir al Balah, central Gaza. Pic: Reuters
Dr Potokar described the impact on those on the ground, saying: “We’ve been operating all morning so far and [treating] awful explosive injuries… [including] one young woman with leg fracture and shoulder fracture and a large wound on her buttock, who came in yesterday and is not yet aware that everyone in our family was killed in the onslaught.”
Israel has launched an escalation of its war in Gaza to ramp up pressure on Hamas, seize territory, displace Palestinians to the south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.
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Israel ramps up bombing in Gaza
On Sunday, it announced and launched “extensive” new ground operations in Gaza.
It came after airstrikes killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children, overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics said, and forced northern Gaza’s main hospital to close.
A spokesperson for the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said: “Complete families were wiped off the civil registration record by Israeli bombardment”.
The ministry also said the bombardment had forced the closure of the Indonesian Hospital, the main hospital serving people in northern Gaza.
Nasser hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, said more than 48 people – mostly women and children – were killed in the area which includes tents sheltering displaced people.
In Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, at least 12 people were killed in three separate strikes, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and the Nuseirat camp’s Awda Hospital.
Meanwhile, the Gaza health ministry and the Palestinian Civil Defence – which operates under the Hamas-run government – reported that 19 people were killed in several strikes in Jabalia in northern Gaza.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes.
Read more from Sky News:
How Israel has escalated Gaza bombing campaign
Ceasefire talks are taking place in Qatar this weekend – with Israel saying they involve discussions on ending the war as well as a truce and hostage deal.
A statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said any lasting truce must include the demilitarisation of Gaza as well as the exile of Hamas militants.
But a senior Israeli official added there had been little progress so far during talks in Qatar’s capital Doha.
Sky News Arabia reported Hamas had proposed freeing about half its Israeli hostages in exchange for a two-month ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
A Palestinian official close to the discussions said: “Hamas is flexible about the number of hostages it can free, but the problem has always been over Israel’s commitment to end the war.”
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