Comment by 542354234235

The motive was pretty clear i.e. to murder aid workers helping Palestinians and assumed to be Palestinian. The report is very clear that the IDF could see the vehicle lights the entire time, making it clear they were protected aid workers. They attacked the first ambulance, the follow up ambulances, the UN truck, and the UN bus, before and after dawn, with plenty of time between. If this were a movie, there could be a clever twist to show some other motive, but in the real world, this is as clear as you get without confessions to tell you what was in their heads.

Why didn’t they murder everyone? As testimony says [0], when one of the survivors called out that his mother was Israeli, the IDF soldiers lowered their weapons and helped him up. It seems to me that these are soldiers that have decided that Palestinians are less than human, or that Palestinians will never coexist and it is “them or us”. This mindset happens in many wars, but actual incidents depend on leadership at all levels and how much it is implicitly allowed. I think their cover up actions speak the loudest to how widespread these things are. The on the ground commander clearly wasn’t worried about destroying any and all evidence or leaving witnesses. Buring everything was to make it too difficult for outsiders confirm what happened, not to prevent leadership from putting them in jail. They were counting on being protected, and they were. A letter of reprimand for the commander, and losing his position as deputy commander (not loss of rank or being kicked out of the military) is little more than a speedbump to their military careers.

[0] Page 36-37 of report