[Salon] Gaza Aid Worker Deaths Test New IDF Chief as Army's Recklessness Spreads to West Bank

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-04-06/ty-article/.premium/gaza-aid-worker-deaths-test-new-idf-chief-as-armys-recklessness-spreads-to-west-bank/00000196-07a2-d63e-a1be-ffeafbad0000

Gaza Aid Worker Deaths Test New IDF Chief as Army's Recklessness Spreads to West Bank - Israel News - Haaretz.com

Amos Harel Apr 6, 2025

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir took some harsh steps last week, after a rampage by settlers and soldiers in the village of Jinba, in the West Bank's South Hebron Hills.

Following a confrontation between Palestinian shepherds and one Israeli shepherd, a force from a conscript artillery battalion, accompanied by settlers from a regional defense force, went on a revenge campaign that included damage to property and cars. The incident was first hidden from senior officers.

Zamir insisted on arriving at the scene himself; a number of officers were reprimanded and dismissed. A few soldiers and officers were jailed. This will be done with regard to other incidents, recently revealed, in which soldiers abused Palestinians.

A Palestinian boy's drawing exposes a campaign of terror by Israeli army and settlers
Israelis will have to look in the mirror and see the Gaza atrocities committed in our name
A West Bank village destroyed

The chief of staff is in the midst of a necessary campaign aimed at bolstering operational discipline in the army. This includes more meticulous attention to rules of engagement and the treatment of civilians.

During the term of his predecessor, Herzl Halevi, the army had difficulties in addressing these issues. First, there was a war, conducted in a spirit of revenge following the atrocities committed by Hamas. Second, commanders who continued in their post after October 7 found it hard to stick to enforcement and punish offending subordinates while they themselves stayed in office despite their responsibility for the failures.

Zamir is free of all this, and is determined to set the army straight, including "sending some heads rolling," as he told IDF generals.

Part of the problem, say members of the IDF's general staff, relates to the percolating of reckless norms from the war in Gaza to tasks relating to security in the West Bank. After a year and a half of combat, forces leaving the Gaza Strip (the artillery battalion had come from the south two days before the rampage near Hebron) find it difficult to internalize the fact that the rules of the game in the West Bank are different.

A convoy of displaced Gazans on Friday.Credit: Eyad Baba/AFP

But the West Bank is not the main problem. It's possible that the first serious test facing the chief of staff, and with him a test for the entire army, lies in another incident, which took place in the enclave over a week ago. Most media outlets in Israel, other than Haaretz, hardly mentioned it.

On the night of March 23, a Palestinian convoy, including an ambulance and fire fighting trucks, approached an IDF force in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah. Soldiers opened fire at the vehicles, which they said were moving in a suspicious manner. Fifteen people working for aid organizations, including paramedics, were killed by the gunfire. The bodies of these health workers, including their crushed vehicles, were found after a few days, buried in the sand.

Sources in the division responsible for that area told Haaretz last week that the soldiers had felt that their lives were in danger, that checking the identities of most of the dead showed that they were associated with Hamas, and that Hamas systematically uses emergency aid vehicles for moving armed men around.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir during a situation assessment in the southern West Bank following the settler attack on Jinba.Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit

The concentration of the bodies and their temporary burial under nets, it was claimed, was part of a customary practice used by the IDF during this war, so that roving dogs wouldn't get to them. The IDF usually informs the Palestinians, through international agencies, about the location in which bodies are buried.

However, Palestinian witnesses said that the emergency vehicles carried the usual markings, with their lights flashing, and that the victims were executed, shot point-blank, with some of the bodies found with their hands cuffed.

American and British media outlets have published further information and testimonies in recent days, bolstering Palestinian claims. The New York Times reported on Saturday that a video found on the cellphone of a dead paramedic showed that the convoy was indeed clearly marked, in contrast to claims by the IDF.

Senior army sources also voiced more questions over the weekend about the version given by the division in Gaza. However, claims by the Palestinians should also be treated with caution, given that Hamas has an interest in turning every incident with fatalities into an international incident, with the goal of advancing legal action against Israel.

A class in the village of Jinba, Masafer Yatta, last week, after it was attacked by settlers.Credit: Yahel Gazit

And yet, there are ostensible claims that a massacre of medical personnel took place. For that reason, investigation of the incident was transferred to a team working for the IDF's general staff.

The force that fired at the emergency team belongs to the Golani Brigade, but was operating under the command of a reserve brigade. A few days ago, a video was aired showing a battalion commander talking to his soldiers on the eve of their return to the enclave.

"Anyone you encounter there is an enemy. You identify anyone, you eliminate him," he tells his soldiers. His words reflect rules of engagement that are broad and permissive.

Such statements have led to the killing of many Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. This was also the backdrop for the killing of three Israeli hostages who managed to escape their Hamas captors, but were mistakenly shot to death by an IDF force in the neighborhood of Shujaiyeh in December 2023.

Heading the general staff investigating team is Maj. Gen. (res.) Yoav Har-Even, a former CEO of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and the head of IDF operations. The investigation will be accompanied by the Military Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi. Only two weeks ago, Defense Minister Israel Katz tried to have her fired, but the chief of staff gave her his full support.

Now, he and Har-Even need further support – and protection from the circus of cover-ups and condemnations that is certain to begin soon – in order to investigate and get to the bottom of this worrisome affair.