The Israel Protection Forces (IDF) unit concerned within the killings of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue employees within the Gaza Strip final month was beneath the command of a brigade led by a infamous Israeli common beforehand accused by a few of his personal troops of getting “contempt for human life”.
The IDF has confirmed that troops from Golani, one of many military’s 5 infantry brigades, opened fireplace on two convoys of ambulances in Rafah on 23 March and dug a mass grave to cowl the our bodies of these killed till the corpses may very well be retrieved by a UN workforce six days later. It has disputed allegations from two witnesses who exhumed the our bodies and newly launched postmortem outcomes that discovered a number of of these killed had close-range gunshot wounds to the pinnacle and chest and had been found with their fingers or legs tied.
Discipline operatives from Unit 504, a army intelligence unit with a repute for cruelty and reckless behaviour, together with torture, had been additionally current throughout the assault, a senior army intelligence supply with data of latest IDF deployments in southern Gaza informed the Guardian. The Israeli army declined to touch upon whether or not 504 was concerned.
Throughout the Rafah assault, the Golani troops had been beneath the command of the reservist Armoured 14th Brigade. The 14th Brigade is a part of a division led by Brig Gen Yehuda Vach, who former officers say designated an unofficial “kill zone” elsewhere within the strip which resulted within the arbitrary killings of Palestinian civilians. Troopers additionally alleged Vach’s “lack of operational discipline” endangered troopers’ lives.
Vach has additionally informed troops “there are no innocents in Gaza”, in accordance with an investigation by the Israeli every day Haaretz.
In a video of Golani troops being briefed earlier than their redeployment to Gaza earlier this month, aired by Israel’s Channel 14, a battalion commander appeared to endorse an open-fire coverage, telling the troopers: “Anyone you encounter there is an enemy. You identify anyone, you eliminate him.”
Golani troopers have beforehand been accused of conflict crimes within the battle, together with killing civilians, degrading therapy of our bodies, pointless destruction of civilian infrastructure, and incitement to genocide.
A track written by a member of the brigade’s 51st Battalion within the aftermath of the Hamas 7 October 2023 assault on Israel that ignited the conflict has change into an unofficial anthem for a lot of troopers. The refrain’s lyrics embody: “For what you did to the nation of Israel, Golani is coming with gasoline … Gaza will burn.”
The accompanying music video options footage from Golani operations in Gaza through which the brigade’s yellow and inexperienced customary can clearly be seen.
Lots of the allegations towards Golani troops had been compiled from social media photograph and video footage posted on-line by the troopers themselves and cited in authorized filings by the Hind Rajab Basis, a non-profit that goals to carry Israeli army personnel accountable for conflict crimes and crimes towards humanity in Gaza. Israeli officers say the 2 founders of the Belgium-based organisation have a historical past of extremist views.
The presence of Unit 504 was additionally backed up by the account of the only survivor of the bloodbath, the Pink Crescent volunteer Munther Abed, and official images and video of latest IDF operations in Rafah.
The unit has carried out 1000’s of interrogations of captives from Gaza throughout the conflict, and differs from different Israeli army intelligence outfits in that the troopers are fight troops, working at a battalion degree, who communicate fluent Arabic.
In keeping with Abed, a 27-year-old ambulance service volunteer, troops he described as trying like “special forces … armed with rifles, green lasers, and night-vision goggles” dragged him out of the emergency automobile after it was shot at repeatedly for 5 minutes, killing the driving force and paramedic he was travelling with.
The uniform description might match both Golani commandos or that of Unit 504 discipline operatives.
Abed mentioned he was then stripped to his underwear, together with his fingers certain behind his again, and threatened, suffocated and overwhelmed throughout a number of hours of interrogation.
Final week, the Israeli army backtracked on its account of the killings of the paramedics after footage emerged which contradicted its claims that the Pink Crescent automobiles weren’t marked as emergency automobiles and weren’t utilizing headlights or flashing lights when troops opened fireplace.
The IDF has mentioned that between six and 9 of the medics had hyperlinks to Hamas, with out offering proof. None of these killed – eight Pink Crescent employees, six members of the Gaza civil defence company and one worker of the UN company for Palestinian refugees – had been armed. One Pink Crescent worker remains to be lacking.
The Israeli military chief, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, has since ordered a second, extra in-depth investigation into the assault.
Over 18 months of conflict Israeli forces have killed a whole lot of medical employees and the employees of help companies and UN organisations in Gaza. In April final yr, seven members of the charity World Central Kitchen died in a sustained Israeli assault on their clearly marked automobiles.
Human rights organisations have lengthy accused the Israeli army of a tradition of impunity, with few troopers ever going through justice. In 2023, fewer than 1% of complaints made towards Israeli troops’ actions within the occupied Palestinian territories resulted in a conviction, in accordance with the most recent US state division annual human rights report.
Earlier this week, the Palestinian Pink Crescent Society referred to as for a world investigation into the incident, which was the deadliest for members of the Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross since six employees had been shot and killed in 2017 in an Islamic State ambush in Afghanistan.
