‘Not the first time Hamas has abused ambulances’

An Israeli official dismissed claims of killings from up close, secondary shootings and that those shot were handcuffed, stressing that the shots were fired from a distance.

By Yaakov Lappin, JNS

As the IDF continued its investigation into a March 23 incident in southern Gaza in which troops opened fire on a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, an Israeli military official outlined a detailed timeline suggesting that the forces had engaged what they believed were Hamas terrorists following an earlier encounter with terror operatives in the same location.

According to the official, speaking on April 5 and stressing that the incident was still under active investigation, IDF reservists from the 14th Armored Brigade and members of the Golani Brigade were operating in the Tel Sultan area, an area described as having “a lot of incidents of terror activity.”

The official said IDF forces had positioned themselves around 4 a.m. for an ambush on a road on which a Hamas vehicle subsequently passed by, opened fire and killed two Hamas members, taking a third for interrogation. “In the interrogation, he also admits that he was Hamas,” the official said.

The troops remained in the area for two more hours, during which time “cars going by, coordinated cars, including ambulances” were observed. Then, at around 6 a.m., the unit received intelligence from IDF aerial surveillance warning of “a convoy moving in the dark in a suspicious way,” he said.

The Israeli official said that the IDF personnel reported that individuals got out of the cars and began moving towards them and that the military personnel felt “like this is another incident… like what happened at 4:00 a.m. and they opened fire against those people… from afar.”

He dismissed claims of killings from up close, secondary shootings and that those shot were handcuffed, stressing that the shots were fired from a distance.

The official also stated that after the forces approached the scene, they “identify part of them as terrorists, alongside with intelligence and evidence on the ground.” He added, pointedly, “In their eyes, they had an encounter with terrorists.”

An earlier statement by the IDF, released on April 2, stated, “Following an initial assessment, it was determined that the forces had eliminated a Hamas military operative, Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, along with eight other terrorists from Hamas and the PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad].

While the investigation was ongoing,the military official also dismissed claims of a cover-up attempt. “They [the IDF personnel] called the UN immediately,” to pass on the location of the bodies.

“Once the IDF personnel understood that the UN was not arriving any time soon, they took the decision to cover up the bodies with military camouflage nets, and to cover them with sand,” the source said, adding, “They did not want wild animals to touch the bodies.”

In addition to sending the location to the UN, the IDF eventually helped the UN find the bodies, according to the source. He also noted that when the vehicles from the convoy, which were blocking the road, were cleared the next day, an IDF unit arrived “with a big engineering tool and moved them in a way that destroyed the cars.”

The resulting scene drew significant international condemnation. The IDF is still investigating discrepancies between its initial assessment that the vehicles in the convoy did not activate their emergency lights, and subsequent video showing that the lights were on.

When asked about the casualties, the official confirmed, “There were 15 people in the incident. Fourteen were killed; one person survived.” The IDF’s initial understanding was that there were at least six terrorists among the personnel.

“We will try and put out the names and try and put out the pictures and try and put out the evidence—as long as we can declassify it,” the source said. “It’s not the first time Hamas has abused ambulances. I don’t think it will be the last time.”

The Gaza incident occurred amid a phased broadening of IDF operations in Gaza.

The IDF conducted strikes and artillery fire across several areas of Gaza in recent hours against Hamas, including Shuja’iyya, in eastern Gaza city, Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, and Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Strip.

The IDF is considering having soldiers distribute humanitarian aid directly to Gazans, according to a report by Ynet on Monday, amid Israeli dissatisfaction with current international inspection mechanisms in Gaza and growing pressure to ensure aid delivery.

On April 6, Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of Research at IDF Military Intelligence and Director-General of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, and head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, said that the war’s goals remained clear: “We need to release the hostages, and we need to make sure that Hamas is removed from power.”

He added that the IDF had likely made plans to take over the entire Gaza Strip if necessary. “I think that we are trying to avoid it by putting more and more pressure on Hamas,” he said, describing the strategy as including stopping the humanitarian aid, stopping the electricity, and “taking more and more chunks of the Gaza Strip under our control, including the Moag Axis now, and the operations in the north [of Gaza], and in the south, and in Rafah, as we all witnessed.”

Kuperwasser noted that while a full occupation of Gaza was not Israel’s preferred outcome, it might become inevitable.

If current IDF operations are enough “to convince Hamas to accept our proposal of releasing hostages and 16 bodies, and the remaining hostages will be discussed in the next stage, that would be enough for Hamas to ease the pressure that it faces today. But if it’s not going to be accepted, then so far they have refused, the pressure is going to be building up, extended to the point where we shall be almost controlling the Gaza Strip, at least controlling the aid when it will be resumed.”

He also criticized past Israeli security assessments that, he said, exaggerated the cost and danger of retaking Gaza. “What the [past] leadership of the defense establishment did… was describing this taking over of Gaza as something terrible and totally unacceptable, extremely costly… and they used that description to deter the political leadership from ordering them to do that.”

Kuperwasser concluded that a decisive Israeli campaign would “convince the Gazans that Hamas is out and Hamas is not coming back,” estimating that “at least a year is necessary” for such a shift in perception among the civilian population.