By Ali Sawafta
RAMALLAH (Reuters) – The Palestinian Red Crescent called on Monday for a “serious investigation” into the killing of 15 aid workers in Gaza last month, a day after the Israeli military admitted “professional failures” and disciplined two officers over the incident.
Younish Al-Khatib, chairman of the Palestinian Red Crescent, said he did not consider the measures taken by the Israeli military, which reprimanded one officer and dismissed another from his position, as sufficient.
“This looks like the management of a company taking administrative measures against its employees who made some kind of a mistake,” he told Reuters. “When you kill 15 medical staff and civil defence personnel, these can’t be called ‘measures’.”
“There has to be proper accountability and a stop to impunity that Israel has taken for granted for so many years,” he added.
On Sunday, the Israeli military said members of a special forces unit in Gaza had made a number of errors in three separate incidents on March 23, during which they fired on ambulances, a fire truck and a UN vehicle.
It issued a formal reprimand to a brigade commander and said the deputy battalion commander who was on the ground when the incident occurred would be relieved of his post over the mix of professional failures and breaches of orders, as well as a failure to fully report the incident.
After initially saying the soldiers opened fire on a number of unmarked vehicles that approached their position, the military confirmed that they were clearly marked as emergency vehicles. The investigation found, however, that the soldiers had been unable to see clearly in the dark.
The military advocate general’s office may now take further action, including possible criminal action against the soldiers, the military said.
Killing of the aid workers drew condemnation worldwide, piling pressure on the military to clarify what had occurred and to hold those responsible to account.
Al-Khatib said the army’s investigation, headed by former Major General Yoav Har-Even did not match the seriousness of the incident, which added to a toll of more than 400 Palestinian emergency and health workers killed in the conflict, including 44 from the Red Crescent.
“We don’t look at it as a proper investigation,” Al-Khatib said, urging an independent international investigation. He said the Red Crescent would continue to work in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Separately, Hamas issued a statement saying the Israeli military investigation was “nothing but a blatant attempt to evade full responsibility for this heinous crime”.
(Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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