The IDF’s General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism has completed reviews of approximately 150 exceptional incidents since the outbreak of the war, transferring its findings to the Military Advocate General’s office for legal review. Decisions have now been reached in five major cases involving civilian and humanitarian worker deaths in Gaza.

In one case from March 2025 in Tel al-Sultan, 15 Palestinians, including medical personnel, were killed after troops opened fire on rescue and UN vehicles. Military prosecutors determined that the findings raised reasonable suspicion of a criminal offense and ordered a Military Police investigation. Command measures included a formal reprimand for the commander of the 14th Brigade and the dismissal of the deputy commander of the Golani Reconnaissance Unit.

A Military Police investigation was also ordered into a January 2024 incident in Gaza City involving the Hamada family. Five occupants of their vehicle were killed, and two paramedics in an ambulance that arrived to rescue them were subsequently killed by a shell. The review identified failures in coordinating movement in the area.

However, prosecutors determined that no additional criminal investigation was warranted into the April 2024 strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Deir al-Balah that killed seven workers. While the review found failures in assessing the situation that led troops to mistakenly identify the occupants as Hamas terrorists, prosecutors concluded that the decisions did not cross the threshold for criminal conduct. Commanders had previously been dismissed or reprimanded over the incident by the IDF chief of staff.

Military Police investigations were also ruled out in two incidents involving Doctors Without Borders personnel.

In a February 2024 strike on a building in Khan Younis that killed two women, the review determined that the strike was carried out for a military purpose despite an intelligence gap regarding the building’s affiliation.

In a separate November 2023 incident in Gaza, two passengers in a convoy returning without coordination were killed. The review determined that soldiers fired warning shots from a safe distance and that the two were most likely killed by shrapnel.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)