Updates: Red Crescent rubbishes Israeli probe into Gaza medic killings

Thanks for joining us.

To learn more about Israel’s investigation into the killing of Palestinian medics in Gaza, you can read our story here.

You can also read about Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank celebrating Easter under dire circumstances and Israeli restrictions on freedom of movement here.

And here is the story of a father who found his wife dead after an Israeli attack, and then spent a year looking for his missing 13-month-old baby.

We will be closing the live blog soon. Here’s a brief overview of today’s main events:

• Israel released a report on a probe into the killing of several Palestinian medics in Gaza, firing a deputy commander from his position for “professional failures” but denying allegations that the medics were executed and repeating a number of claims previously contradicted by video footage of the incident. The Palestine Red Crescent Society deemed the probe “incomprehensible” and called for an independent investigation by the United Nations.
• At least 31 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Sunday morning as Israel continues to relentlessly pummel the Gaza Strip.
• The United States carried out strikes on the Yemeni capital Sanaa that killed at least 12 people, according to Yemen’s Houthis, as the US continues to carry out attacks on the country in response to Houthi attacks against Israel over the war in Gaza.
• Israel carried out a series of strikes in southern Lebanon, where it says that it targeted Hezbollah infrastructure and personnel in attacks that killed at least two people.

Israel’s government has cancelled the visas of a group of 27 leftist French lawmakers several days before they were scheduled to visit Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, using a law that allows authorities to bar those seen as unfriendly to Israel.

“For the first time, two days before our departure, the Israeli authorities cancelled our entry visas that had been approved one month ago,” they group of lawmakers said. “We want to understand what led to this sudden decision, which resembles collective punishment.”

“Deliberately preventing elected officials and parliamentarians from travelling cannot be without consequences,” the group said, asking French President Emmanuel Macron to intervene.

An explosion has been reported in the Nur Shams camp, east of Tulkarem, as Israel continues a military operation across the occupied West Bank.

The Wafa news agency reported that a fire broke out in a building following the explosion, but details remain scarce as Israel has forced the displacement of local residents.

The Palestinian news agency said bulldozers also levelled streets in the Jabal an-Nasr area of the camp and raided a house near the al-Nasr Mosque.

Israeli forces stepped up attacks across the West Bank after a ceasefire agreement was reached in Gaza between Israel and Hamas on January 17.

Several refugee camps have been raided, including Jenin, Tulkarem, Far’a and Arroub, forcing at least 40,000 to flee their homes, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Human rights advocate Adam Shapiro says that Israel’s report on the execution of Palestinian medics in Gaza attempts to place limited blame for the incident on a single person while leaving the systematic Israeli policies that enabled it untouched.

“I think ultimately this is a whitewash. It’s an effort to pin the blame on the errors of one person rather than an honest accounting of what happened,” he told Al Jazeera. “We know from the evidence that has been collected and presented by the Palestine Red Crescent that the victims were targeted, that they suffered close-range bullet wounds, that they had the lights on their vehicles at the time. Everything that the Israelis put out from the beginning was a lie.”

Shapiro also said that such efforts have long defined Israel’s approach towards allegations of rights abuses.

“Whether it’s in the West Bank, in Gaza, in Lebanon in previous generations, everywhere the Israeli military operates it conducts and commits war crimes and then it covers them up,” he said.

More reaction from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) to the Israeli probe into its military’s killing of 15 Palestinian medics and aid workers in Gaza last month.

“The report is full of lies,” PRCS spokesperson Nebal Farsakh told AFP. “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.”

President Joseph Aoun has said that the question of disarming the powerful Lebanese group is “a sensitive, delicate issue that is fundamental to preserving civil peace” and requires “consideration and responsibility”.

“Any controversial domestic issue in Lebanon can only be approached through conciliatory, non-confrontational dialogue and communication. If not, we will lead Lebanon to ruin,” Aoun added.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said on Friday that the group would not be disarmed while Israel continues to carry out strikes and occupy several points in southern Lebanon.

Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting that an Israeli helicopter bombed the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Several people have been injured in the attack, which targeted a tent housing displaced people.

Al-Mawasi has been turned into the main displacement and refuge area for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, who have been ordered by the Israeli army to leave their homes.

As we reported earlier, an Israeli examination into the killing of 15 paramedics in Gaza found the army opened fire “after perceiving an immediate and tangible threat”.

A video recovered from the mobile phone of one of the victims, however, shows Palestinian medics wearing highly reflective uniforms inside a clearly identifiable Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance.

Here is the video, in case you’ve missed it.

The Palestinian group Hamas has said the shooting near the Israeli settlement of Homesh, in the occupied West Bank, was a “natural and legitimate response to the war crimes and genocide committed” by Israel.

As we reported earlier, a Palestinian shooter opened fire at a checkpoint at the entrance of the settlement and was killed by Israeli forces.

Hamas said the Palestinian people would not “deviate from the path of resistance” and would continue to respond to the Israeli occupation.

A Palestinian has been shot and killed by an Israeli sniper drone in the eastern part of Gaza City, the Wafa news agency has reported.

The attack took place near al-Shawa Square in the Tuffah neighborhood, it said.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has said it “views with deep concern and seriousness the worsening famine in the Gaza Strip” as more than two million Palestinians remain dependent on humanitarian aid, which has been blocked by Israel since March 2.

The ministry warned of an “imminent danger” to their lives “as the meagre remaining quantities of food are about to run out”, according to an assessment by the UN’s World Food Programme.

It called on Arab nations as well as the international community to “take this warning with the utmost seriousness” and use all leverage to compel Israel to open humanitarian crossings and allow the flow of aid.

The president of the Palestine Red Crescent Society has told Al Araby TV that the Israeli narrative on the killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics and aid workers 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.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid blasted the Israeli prime minister in a speech on Sunday in which he said that Israel is “heading toward a disaster” and warned of heated political rhetoric.

“The levels of incitement are unprecedented. The red line has been crossed,” Lapid said. “If we don’t stop, we will have a politically-motivated murder – perhaps more than one – and Jews will kill Jews.”

Netanyahu’s Likud Party countered that Lapid was himself taking part in “dangerous incitement against the prime minister” with his criticism.

Avigdor Liberman, chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, also criticised Netanyahu in a social media post that accused him of being soft on the issue of Israeli security, labelling him “the Prime Minister of October 7”.

“Hamas must be eliminated,” he said. “But the Prime Minister of October 7 is unable to reach this goal.”