Latest news with #Younisal-Khatib
Al Arabiya
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Palestinian Red Crescent: Israeli probe into Gaza aid workers' killings not enough
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. Younis 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 defense 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.'
Al Jazeera
20-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Israeli army only finds ‘professional failures' in Gaza aid worker killings
The Israeli military has released details of an investigation into its own killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics and aid workers in Gaza last month, saying its code of ethics was not violated and only one soldier is dismissed, in an attack that sparked outrage in the international community. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and the Israeli rights organisation Breaking the Silence rejected the findings of the Israeli probe on Sunday. PRCS's president told Al-Araby TV that the Israeli narrative on the killings in Rafah was 'contradictory'. 'It is incomprehensible why the occupation soldiers buried the bodies of the paramedics in a criminal manner,' Younis al-Khatib said. Al-Khatib added that the Israeli army communicated with the paramedics before killing them and that the evidence – including a video showing their ambulances flashing emergency lights – proved 'the falsity of the occupation's narrative regarding the limited visibility at the site'. 'An independent and impartial investigation must be conducted by a UN body,' he said. PRCS, which had medics killed by Israel in the incident, also denounced the Israeli report as 'full of lies' on Sunday. 'It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different,' Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the organisation, told the AFP news agency. The PRCS said last week that it received confirmation from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that one of its medics who was missing is being held by Israeli army on Sunday claimed that six of the aid workers who were killed and buried in a shallow mass grave along with their ambulances were Hamas 'terrorists', without providing any evidence. It admitted its probe detected a series of 'professional failures', including partial and inaccurate reporting by the commanding officers in the field invading southern Gaza's Rafah. The deputy commander of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion will be dismissed, while the commanding officer of the 14th Brigade is to receive a reprimand. The examination also found 'no evidence to support claims of execution or that any of the deceased were bound before or after the shooting', despite the testimonies and the evidence. The Israeli military had initially claimed that the ambulances and aid workers were not clearly marked as first responders and approached its troops 'suspiciously'. A mobile phone video recorded by one of the killed aid workers that was obtained by the New York Times showed that the crew were clearly marked and visible to Israeli forces, and were killed by Israeli fire that lasted several minutes. United Nations and Palestinian officials later found the mass grave and the bulldozed ambulances and bodies after Israeli authorities granted access to the area of the mostly destroyed city of Rafah bordering Egypt. The Israeli anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence said the military investigation is 'riddled with contradictions, vague phrasing, and selective details'. 'Not every lie has a video to expose it, but this report doesn't even attempt to engage with the truth,' the group said. 'Another day, another cover-up. More innocent lives taken, with no accountability.' But far-right voices in the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believe the army is going too far in punishing the soldiers. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's ultranationalist national security minister, said the decision to dismiss the deputy commander was a 'grave mistake' that must be reversed. 'Our combat soldiers, who are sacrificing their lives in Gaza, deserve our full support,' he said. Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Nice told Al Jazeera that the findings of the probe raise questions about the Israeli military's conduct in Gaza and the thoroughness of the investigative process. 'It's a pretty surprising document. It's also a document that invites many questions that it will be difficult, I suspect, for the [Israeli military] to answer,' Nice said in a television interview. 'For example, [there is] the proposition that six of these people were Hamas, presumably members of Hamas on active [military] service, not people who might have been associated with Hamas in some way. No documentary evidence at all is identified [for that].' Israel has a track record of denying accusations of wrongdoing and contradicting its own earlier statements. Past investigations have exonerated the armed forces or placed the blame on a single individual without broader repercussions. The UN accused the Israeli military of being responsible for the killing of the 15 aid workers, along with the killing of a Bulgarian UN staff member and wounding of six other foreign staff in Gaza's Deir el-Balah last month. The organisation has been forced to significantly cut its staff in Gaza as the war's death toll continues to mount.
Express Tribune
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Red Crescent calls deaths of aid workers in Gaza strike a ‘war crime'
Members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society carry the bodies of their fellow paramedics who were killed by Israeli forces in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. PHOTO: REUTERS Listen to article The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has called for an independent international investigation after 15 medical and humanitarian workers were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza's Rafah region on March 23. 'This constitutes a full-fledged war crime,' the organisation said in a statement, citing what it called a 'dangerous pattern' of violations against international humanitarian law. PRCS President Younis al-Khatib urged the formation of a commission 'to establish the facts and hold those responsible accountable'. The medics were in ambulances responding to an earlier Israeli strike when they came under sustained fire. Video recovered from one of the victims' phones reportedly shows the team in reflective uniforms and clearly marked rescue vehicles before the shooting began. PRCS said the convoy came under fire for five minutes, with communication records confirming the gunfire continued for two hours until contact with one of the medics was lost. A survivor reported that the ambulances were targeted without warning and alleged he was used as a 'human shield' by Israeli troops before managing to escape. 'It is no longer sufficient to speak of respecting the international law and Geneva Convention,' al-Khatib said at a press conference in the West Bank. 'It is now required from the international community and the UN Security Council to implement the necessary punishment against all who are responsible.' The PRCS confirmed that eight of its staff were killed in the attack, along with six members of the Palestinian Civil Defence agency and one employee of the UN refugee agency UNRWA. The Israeli military denied targeting ambulances indiscriminately, saying it fired on 'terrorists' in 'uncoordinated vehicles' that approached troops without lights or emergency signals. Al-Khatib dismissed the claim, stating the vehicles had their emergency lights on and labelling Israel's version 'false allegations and fabricated stories'. PRCS stated the area was not designated a 'red zone' at the time, meaning no coordination was needed for rescue access. Days later, limited access was granted, and rescue teams recovered bodies—14 of them from what was described as a 'mass grave in a brutal and degrading manner'. The attack has drawn condemnation from Gaza's Civil Defence, the Government Media Office, Hamas, and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, who said the incident raises serious concern over potential war crimes. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said Israeli strikes since the ceasefire was broken on March 18 have hit densely populated areas, with 'patients killed in their hospital beds, ambulances shot at, first responders killed'. According to UNRWA, over 408 aid workers, including more than 280 of its own staff, have been killed since the war began on October 7. Gaza's Health Ministry says at least 921 people have died since March 18, bringing the total death toll to over 50,000—most of them women and children. In response to the rising toll, six UN agency heads jointly urged for an immediate ceasefire and the resumption of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Al Arabiya
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Red Crescent says Israeli troops shot Gaza crew ‘with intent to kill'
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said on Monday that 15 medics and rescuers killed by Israeli forces last month in Gaza were shot in the upper body with 'intent to kill.' The killings occurred in the southern Gaza Strip on March 23, days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Palestinian territory, and have since sparked international condemnation. Younis al-Khatib, president of the Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, told journalists in Ramallah: 'There has been an autopsy of the martyrs from the Red Crescent and civil defense teams. We cannot disclose everything we know, but I will say that all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill.' Al-Khatib called for an international probe into the killings, which the Israeli military has separately announced it was investigating. 'We call on the world to form an independent and impartial international commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the deliberate killing of the ambulance crews in the Gaza Strip,' al-Khatib said. The Israeli military has said its soldiers fired on 'terrorists' approaching them in 'suspicious vehicles,' with a spokesman later adding that the vehicles had their lights off. But a video recovered from the cellphone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appears to contradict the Israeli military's account. The footage shows ambulances travelling with their headlights on and emergency lights flashing. Those killed included eight Red Crescent staff, six members of the Gaza civil defense agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. The bodies were found buried near the site of the shooting in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah city, in what the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) described as a mass grave. 'Why did you hide the bodies?' al-Khatib said of the Israeli forces involved in the attack.
Al Jazeera
31-03-2025
- Health
- Al Jazeera
Palestine Red Crescent says 15 bodies found in search for missing Gaza crew
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says 15 bodies have been found in Rafah, southern Gaza, a week after its first responders came under heavy fire from Israeli forces. The PRCS said on Sunday that eight of the bodies have been identified as PRCS members, six as members of the Civil Defence, and one as a UN agency employee. One PRCS first responder is still missing. The group said the those killed 'were targeted by the Israeli occupation forces while performing their humanitarian duties as they were heading to the Hashashin area of Rafah to provide first aid to a number of people injured by Israeli shelling in the area'. 'The occupation's targeting of Red Crescent medics … can only be considered a war crime punishable under international humanitarian law, which the occupation continues to violate before the eyes of the entire world.' In an earlier statement the Red Crescent said the bodies 'were recovered with difficulty as they were buried in the sand, with some showing signs of decomposition'. PRCS President Younis al-Khatib condemned Israel for targeting its paramedics as they 'fulfil their humanitarian mission'. 'Those souls are not mere numbers. If this incident [happened] anywhere else, the whole world would have moved heaven and earth to expose this war crime,' al-Khatib said on Sunday. Last week, the Israeli military told the AFP news agency that it had fired on ambulances and fire trucks – calling them 'suspicious vehicles' – that arrived at a scene where it was carrying out attacks. Hamas political bureau member Basem Naim slammed the attack on the ambulance and said the 'targeted killing of rescue workers – who are protected under international humanitarian law – constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime'. OCHA chief Tom Fletcher said since Israel broke the ceasefire in Gaza on March 18 and resumed its war on the enclave, Israeli air attacks have hit 'densely populated areas', with 'patients killed in their hospital beds, ambulances shot at, first responders killed'. Gaza's Ministry of Health announced on Saturday that since Israel resumed its attacks, at least 921 people have been killed in the territory, adding to the more than 50,000 killed since October 7, 2023. Israel launched its war after the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, during which 1,139 people died and about 250 were taken captive into Gaza.
