Have Some Patience

Before I dig into the current kerfuffle in Gaza over the ambulance attack by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) I must caution us to wait until Israel finishes their investigation. And we certainly shouldn’t trust the stories given to us by Hamas and the Red Cross (Crescent) , both of which are either terrorists or strongly affiliated with them. We need to remember that the Red Crescent wouldn’t give us health updates on the hostages and weren’t always protective of released hostages until pressure was put on them. And trusting the UN on their information is hardly objective, either. In short, keep all of these things in mind as we read about the incident in a report from The Jerusalem Post:

The IDF on Saturday night tried to reset the narrative of its mistaken killing of 14 Red Cross officials and the wounding of one additional official in what has turned out to be one of the worst IDF attacks on international aid workers in the war.

I disagree with the article’s assessment of the incident, but they are quite liberal overall. Apparently a cell phone recording seems to support The Red Cross narrative so far. Hear is what we know now:

This was after The New York Times had obtained a cell phone recording of one of the killed paramedics, who was found with 14 other aid workers in a mass grave in Rafah late last month.

On March 23, at 4:30 a.m., the Golani Brigade set an ambush for Hamas forces near Tel Sultan in Rafah.

The ambush was successful, and the IDF troops killed the Hamas forces.

Between then and 6:00 a.m., additional vehicles passed through the ambush area, including ambulances, without incident.

Around 6:00 a.m., the IDF troops mistook a group of ambulances for Hamas terrorists and ambushed them from a distance behind set positions.

And we should also note that this was not a new incident and that could factor into why the burial took place. But again, The Post is stating that the IDF mistakenly attacked the ambulance crew, which needs to be verified.

Hanas Is Deceptive

As I mentioned above, Hamas is known for dressing like civilians, hospital workers, and even driving emergency vehicles to move their soldiers around:

Here, a key aspect of the IDF narrative is that Hamas has routinely used ambulances throughout the war.

The Post continues to give Hamas cover by picking apart the IDF account:

But the IDF's explanation for the ambush already has problems. Initially, the military claimed that the ambulances' lights were off, but in fact, at least some of the ambulances' lights were on, though possibly the first ambulance had its lights off.

Also, despite initial IDF claims, the ambulances were properly labeled as Red Cross.

The article’s rendition then questioned the IDF version again and again:

After killing the Red Cross workers, the IDF still believed them to be Hamas based on examining six of the bodies, though the military's explanation of what about the aid workers made them seem like Hamas forces was unclear.

Now, if the IDF mistakenly killed innocent workers then they need to admit it. Next they notified the UN:

At some later point, they realized these were Red Cross workers and notified the UN.

If such an incident happens in an area where the IDF is not staying, but only did a temporary penetration, then they send the UN coordinates and gather the bodies in some kind of net to leave for the organization, according to the military.

For some reason the UN couldn’t find the bodies until the IDF helped them:

However, the UN did not find the bodies, and later, when the IDF returned to the area, it buried the bodies to protect them from damage during any expected new fight, according to the narrative.

Again, the UN could not find the bodies until the IDF unearthed them, and the UN later found them. 

The article then ends telling us that such a procedure doesn’t seem to be happening a lot:

The Jerusalem Post was not provided with other cases in which the IDF used such a procedure to leave bodies of aid workers for the UN.

As I mentioned at the top of this podcast, the actors apart from the IDF have been suspect in the past and I want to wait until more of this is verified by the IDF. If Israel did indeed mistakenly attack innocent workers, then own up to it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. But if the way things happen in this war with Hamas needing to make Israel look bad by deception, that needs to be shown as well. Let’s see how this plays out before we rush to judgment, but I don’t trust Hamas, the Red Cross or the UN to give Israel a fair shake ever. They all have an agenda and it is well known. They are notoriously strangers to the truth.