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| Hamza blog sl |
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday (April 20) dismissed the deputy commander of the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance unit over the killing of 15 rescue workers in Gaza’s Rafah on March 23. This comes after an Israeli probe found “professional failures” in the incident where the Israeli forces opened fire on a convoy of ambulances and emergency vehicles.
The probe found that the deputy commander mistakenly believed the convoy belonged to Hamas militants due to “poor night visibility”.
A video footage of the incident showed other ambulances, which had their lights flashing and logo visible, pulling up to help another ambulance which was earlier caught in the gunfire.
According to media reports, eight Red Crescent personnel, six Civil Defense workers and a UN staffer were killed in the tragic shooting incident. The IDF troops then reportedly bulldozed the bodies and buried them in a mass grave, which was discovered by UN workers only a week ago.
In its investigation, the Israeli military found that the incident happened due to an “operational misunderstanding” by the forces. Another incident which happened just few minutes later and involved Israeli soldiers open fire at a UN vehicle was also in breach of the orders, the investigation found.