The Israeli military Monday updated its earlier report of March 23 gunfire killings of 15 first-responders in southern Gaza, acknowledging errors in earlier statements while an investigation unfolds.
The 15 individuals—consisting of paramedics, Gaza civil defence staff, and one United Nations official—were reportedly shot, subsequently buried in a shallow grave. They were exhumed by United Nations personnel and Palestinian Red Crescent staff a week later. There is a missing individual.
At first, the Israeli army reported that soldiers had fired at what seemed to them suspicious vehicles without lights or markings, and nine of the individuals as Islamic Jihad and Hamas militants who were using Palestinian Red Crescent vehicles.
But new footage on mobile phones of one of the victims, provided by the Palestinian Red Crescent, denies that description. The video shows uniformed paramedics near numbered ambulances and fire trucks with lights plainly visible being fired on by Israeli soldiers.
Munther Abed, a Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic and sole confirmed survivor, corroborated the video testimony, saying that Israeli soldiers fired on vehicles clearly identified as emergency responders.
An Israeli military spokesman said Saturday night that the new evidence, including the video, is being analyzed and that findings will probably be put before military commanders within a short time.
Though the initial field report said that no lights were observed on the vehicles, the official conceded that this could be a reporting error. "What we know right now is that the individual who provided the initial report was wrong. We are attempting to figure out why," the official said.
The inquiry goes on despite growing pressure for openness and responsibility regarding the humanitarian workers' deaths in the conflict area.