Israeli probe into killings of Palestinian medics finds ‘professional failures’

Jerusalem, April 20: An Israeli probe into the killings of 15 Palestinian medics last month in Gaza by Israeli forces said Sunday it has 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.
Eight Red Crescent personnel, six Civil Defence workers and a UN staffer were killed in the shooting before dawn on March 23 by troops conducting operations in Rafah.
Troops then bulldozed over the bodies along with their mangled vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. UN and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.
The Israeli military investigation said the Palestinians were killed due to an “operational misunderstanding” by Israeli forces, and that a separate incident 15 minutes later, when Israeli soldiers shot at a Palestinian UN vehicle, was a breach of orders.
The investigation found that the decision to crush the ambulances was wrong but denied that there was an attempt to conceal the event.
Authorities detain people planning rockets attacks
Lebanese authorities have detained several people who they say were planning to launch rockets into Israel and confiscated the weapons they were intending to use. The army said that the arrests are linked to other detentions announced earlier this week. It added that as military intelligence was investigating that case they got information that a new rocket attack was being planned. (AP)