Israeli soldiers deserve 'universal condemnation' for killing emergency workers: Shanmugam

Minister of Law and Home Affairs K Shanmugam has denounced the killing of emergency workers in Gaza by Israeli soldiers which occurred last month, adding that their actions deserve "universal condemnation".

In a Facebook post on Tuesday (April 8), Shanmugam referred to video evidence of the March 23 incident which was recovered from the mobile phone of one of the deceased and published by the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The footage showed emergency workers in their uniforms and clearly marked ambulances and fire trucks, with their lights on, being fired on by soldiers

This contradicted the Israeli Army's initial claim that soldiers opened fire on a convoy of emergency vehicles because they had approached "suspiciously ... without headlights or emergency signals", reported BBC.

"The Israeli Army lied about it... (but) now admits it was wrong in its account," Shanmugam wrote.

He also criticised the Israeli military for attempting to "cover up the soldiers' illegal actions".

"Massacres, lies. Soldiers may do wrong. But the Army as an institution has a higher duty to do the right thing," he added.

While the minister recognised that Israel might point to Hamas' tactics to justify its military actions, he questioned whether such comparisons were valid.

"Is that even an excuse for a State that says its values are based on Rule of Law?" he wrote.

The bodies of the 15 emergency workers from the Red Cross, Red Crescent, United Nations (UN) and the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service were found a week after the incident by UN and Palestinian Red Crescent officials.

On April 5, the Israeli military had said that troops identified at least six of the 15 killed as members of a militant group but did not provide any evidence or detail of how they did so.

According to a post by the Israel Defence Force on social media platform X on Tuesday, however, a preliminary inquiry indicated that troops "opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area".

"All the claims raised regarding the incident will be examined through the mechanism and presented in a detailed and thorough manner for a decision on how to handle the event," it added.

Today (Monday), the Chief of the General Staff, LTG Eyal Zamir, completed a preliminary inquiry into the shooting incident on March 23 in the Tel al-Sultan area. The inquiry was presented by the Commanding Officer of the Southern Command, MG Yaniv Asor.

The Chief of the General…

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) April 7, 2025

bhavya.rawat@asiaone.com

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