The IDF made a mistake. Hamas made it inevitable.

Incidents like the recent killing of 14 rescue workers in Gaza would be far less likely if Hamas did not routinely commit the war crime of misusing emergency vehicles as taxis.

Images of a destroyed UN vehicle and ambulance at the site of an attack in Rafah, Gaza (photo: Jonathan Whittall/OCHA)

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This is a guest essay written by Andrew Fox, a former British Army officer and current think tank research fellow focusing on defense, the Middle East, and disinformation.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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On March 31st, UNRWA¹ reported that two of its employees and eight Palestine Red Crescent Society² first responders were killed by the IDF.

All in all, 15 bodies were recovered from a mass grave. The Palestine Red Crescent Society stated that all 15 bodies had gunshot wounds and that the emergency vehicles were also buried.

It was later reported that 14 bodies were recovered, comprising eight members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, five from civil defence, and one UN agency employee.

The same day, IDF Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani issued a statement on X, claiming:

The IDF did not randomly attack an ambulance on March 23. Let me walk through what happened step-by-step:

1. ⁠⁠Last Sunday, several uncoordinated vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals. IDF troops then opened fire at the suspected vehicles. Earlier that day, cars that did not belong to terrorists were coordinated and passed safely on the same route.

2. ⁠Following an initial assessment, it was determined that the forces had eliminated a Hamas military operative, Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, who took part in the October 7 massacre, along with 8 other terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

3. After coordination between the IDF and international organizations, the evacuation of bodies was carried out.

Then, on Saturday, The New York Times published a video that purported to be from the mobile phone of one of the workers who had been killed. Following the release of the video, Shoshani said that the incident had been reported to the IDF’s Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism (more on that soon).

Some notes on the video itself. First of all, it is unconfirmed. It shows aid vehicles, with lights on, approaching what appears to be another emergency vehicle pulled over at the side of the road, also with emergency lights on. This all aligns with what we know and what has been admitted by the IDF.

Times of Israel military correspondent Mannie Fabian reported the IDF’s initial findings. To paraphrase his report:

• On March 23rd, the incident occurred during the resumption of fighting in Gaza and a new offensive in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah.

• Golani soldiers, as part of 14th Armored Brigade, laid an ambush on a road in Tal al-Sultan at around 4 A.M. At that time, several ambulances and civilians passed by, without incident. At around 4:30 A.M., a Hamas police vehicle drove through the area. Golani soldiers exchanged fire with hostile combatants, killing one and capturing two others.

• The Hamas vehicle remained on the side of the road.

• At around 6 A.M., the convoy of ambulances arrived in the area, and the soldiers opened fire, thinking they were a threat. Drone operators flying a UAV overhead had reported to the Golani soldiers that the vehicles were moving toward them in a suspicious manner.

• The initial investigation claims that the soldiers were surprised by the convoy stopping on the road, next to the abandoned Hamas vehicle, and several suspects disembarked quickly and ran. (This is confirmed in the video.) The soldiers were unaware that the suspects were unarmed medics.

• The IDF acknowledges that its statement claiming the ambulances had their lights off was incorrect and was based on the testimony of the soldiers involved in the incident.

• The IDF claimed that at least six of the 15 slain medics were immediately identified by intelligence officials as Hamas operatives.

• According to the initial probe, the shooting did not take place at close range, and the troops did not carry out any executions.

• After the firefight, a deputy battalion commander in Golani with his troops collected the bodies into one spot, covered them with sand, and marked the burial spot. The IDF states that burying bodies is an approved and regular practice to prevent wild dogs and other animals from defiling the dead.

• The IDF then notified the UN of the burial spot for them to come collect the bodies. The following day, the UN was unable to find the location, and Golani forces were busy with another task. The UN was then called to return several days later to collect the bodies. They were recovered in coordination with the IDF.

Fabian’s report states that the IDF accepts the medics were unarmed. In the video, however, we see one of the figures fleeing an ambulance carrying what might be a long-barrelled weapon. That said, armed security guards are allowed in Gaza, and it would be natural for a security guard to return fire when being shot at.

One thing is clear: Further investigation is needed. This is where the Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism comes into play.

The Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism is the IDF Chief of the General Staff’s organisation for investigation of exceptional incidents during the conduct of hostilities. It exists to identify and report on systemic issues to minimise the possibility of recurrence.

Following the accidental World Central Kitchen aid convoy strike on April 1, 2024, the Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism investigated and published a report within 48 hours. This report resulted in updated targeting procedures and improved coordination between humanitarian convoys and the IDF.

An independent Australian report into the circumstances of the strike stated: “…the ADF [Australian Defence Force] could not have imposed equivalent reprimands as quickly as the IDF Chief of the General Staff was able to.”

The Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism is external to operational command. It can only be activated by the Military Advocate General or the Chief of the General Staff. Headed by a two-star major general, it is a multi-disciplinary body comprising former IDF commanders with expertise in various fields: intelligence and legal experts, linguists, and technical experts.

It is also a legally established body, and both soldiers and civilians have a legal duty to cooperate with their investigations. There is statutory privilege for Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism investigations: Evidence given cannot be incorporated into legal proceedings. The Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism will return a report to the Military Advocate General, who may then commence a full criminal investigation when required.

An “exceptional incident” is any incident that could raise a charge of possible illegal conduct or military procedural misconduct. As of July 2024, when I visited the Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism, there were 300 incidents being actively investigated by the Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism, with over 1,000 more on which they had received initial information.

The Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism is a permanent investigatory body akin to those temporary investigatory processes established in Australia (Brereton) and the UK (Haddon-Cave). The Brereton report was commissioned by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force to investigate war crimes by Australian Special Forces. It began in 2016 and delivered its report in 2020.

The UK Ministry of Defence commissioned the Haddon-Cave Independent Inquiry to investigate alleged Special Air Service Regiment war crimes in Afghanistan. It was established in 2022 and is ongoing.

These two inquiries give a clear parallel to Israeli investigations of war crimes. They demonstrate the length of time required to give an equitable legal outcome in such investigations. This is not a quick business. Possible war crimes most usually have no sterile crime scenes, few easily identified or interviewed third-party witnesses, and often have little evidence other than participant eyewitness accounts.

In this incident, it is clear that soldiers were interviewed and that drone footage exists in addition to the Palestine Red Crescent Society footage. As with the World Central Kitchen incident, I would expect a fast report. This is in the IDF’s best interests. I would also expect some kind of later third-party verification of any IDF report, similar to Australian Air Chief Marshal Binskin’s report into the World Central Kitchen incident.

So, what really happened here?

The most likely explanation to me based on the data available is that Golani soldiers made a genuine mistake and then tried to cover it up. Let me explain my thinking.

We know there was a firefight at 4:30 A.M. with Hamas operatives using a police vehicle as cover. We also have the IDF statement that Golani soldiers were warned from drone footage that vehicles were approaching at around 6 A.M.

The mental state of the Golani soldiers here bears speculation. From my experience, I would predict that they were in a heightened condition. Adrenaline would have been flowing from the earlier firefight and the soldiers would likely have been in fight-or-flight mode, compounded by the dawn low light.

This is always a heightened time of tension on operations. For example, in the British Army, we stand to a higher level of alert at the day/night crossover. Daybreak in Gaza is currently around 5:30 A.M. and we can see the dawn light in the video — added to which I always found ambushes in darkness to be the single-most stressful and fear-inducing operations to undertake in Afghanistan.

So, we have a situation where soldiers are already in a heightened emotional state from an earlier legitimate firefight, and have been warned that approaching vehicles are behaving suspiciously, as light fades. These are the perfect conditions for mistakes to happen.

The next question lies over the decision to open fire. As with any army in the world, the baseline rule of engagement is the right to self-defence. Where a clear threat to life is identified, a soldier may open fire. Rules of engagement escalate from this point.

Israeli Rules of Engagement bear direct comparison to those used by the British Army. During my time in Afghanistan, Card Alpha gave every British soldier an inherent right to self-defence.

In Afghanistan, Rule of Engagement 421 authorised an attack on anyone demonstrating hostile intent that did not constitute an imminent attack. Rule of Engagement 422 allowed an attack on anyone committing a hostile act that did not constitute an actual attack. Rule of Engagement 429 allowed a pre-emptive attack on any positively identified enemy forces, whether engaged in hostile activity or not.

As with the British Army, IDF Rules of Engagement hinge on positively identifying an enemy. This is where the World Central Kitchen error occurred: proper positively identifying procedures were not followed.

However, if there were armed security guards as part of the Palestine Red Crescent Society convoy, on seeing a weapon it is possible under the circumstances that an IDF soldier could have genuinely believed there was risk to life. Alternatively, their rules of engagement may have allowed for opening fire under any genuinely held belief of enemy combatant status.

This is where the law of armed conflict is very poorly understood. Legally, it does not matter if those killed were civilians. It hinges on whether the soldier genuinely believed those killed were combatants. This is why any crime of this nature is hard to prosecute. The law demands a burden of proof on the prosecution of beyond reasonable doubt.

If a soldier, in the circumstances described here, states that he genuinely believed these were combatants, it is a very high burden of proof to show that he cannot reasonably have held this belief — especially if firearms were identified. (Although, it bears repeating, that contrary to what appears to be shown in the video, the IDF appears to accept that these aid workers were unarmed.)

So, we are left with two options: either Golani believed these aid workers were combatants and opened fire legally, or they opened fire without proper positively identifying, breaking rules of engagement.

The third option, of course, is that rogue elements in Golani opened fire and knowingly murdered aid workers in cold blood. Given all the other circumstances I have outlined (the heightened tension, the drone reports, the low light) this option is likely impossible to prove unless the soldiers openly admit it.

The IDF investigation will likely be left with one of the first two options. This incident may also point towards a loose approach to opening fire, but it bears repeating that rules of engagement can often permit this, quite legally.

Further questions arise over the burial of the aid vehicles and the misreporting passed up the chain to the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. Let us be clear: The only error confirmed so far is the report that the vehicles showed no headlights or emergency lights. This is currently the only confirmed point of dispute between the statements made by both sides, and the video.

The IDF has already admitted that their first account was incorrect. This false information can only have come from the unit on the ground, which suggests either a reporting error or an attempt to hide the evidence when the non-combatant status of those killed was discovered.

The burial of the vehicles seems a bit odd, but we do know the IDF uses unprecedented numbers of bulldozers in Gaza. Bulldozing everything into a grave might have been the easiest, if most disrespectful, option given that we know the unit redeployed on another mission shortly after this incident.

Therefore, my assessment on the evidence available so far is that this was either a genuine misidentification of combatants by troops in a heightened state of alertness, or a failure to carry out proper emergency convoy coordination and positively identifying procedures; and either a lie or a failure in reporting of the circumstances regarding the vehicle lights.

Of course, this may be a genuine war crime. It might also be that the “emergency workers” were actually Hamas operatives and the IDF has done nothing wrong other than misreport the lights on the vehicles. Either way, the Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism has been proven highly reliable in the past and the truth will come out.

A final point bears repeating: Incidents like this would be far less likely to happen if Hamas did not routinely commit the war crime of misusing emergency vehicles as taxis.

Tragic mistakes happen in war. I would bet that this is one of them.

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1. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees

2. The Palestinian version of the Red Cross