Israeli military says it holds special probe into Gaza aid worker deaths

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The Israeli military is conducting an investigation into an incident in Gaza in which a number of emergency and aid workers were killed, a military spokesperson said on Thursday, rejecting a description of the incident as an "execution".

Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said the military's Southern Command had transferred the investigation to a general staff mechanism outside the chain of command to establish what happened and "hold accountable people if we need to".

Last month, the bodies of 15 workers from the Red Crescent, Palestinian Civil Defense and United Nations were found buried in a shallow grave at the southern end of the Gaza Strip, close to their wrecked vehicles.

Israel has not directly addressed the accusation that its forces deliberately killed health workers but the military has described an incident on March 23, when it said its troops fired on vehicles bearing Red Crescent markings near Rafah, killing nine members of militant groups.

"Our initial investigation found that there were terrorists in these cars, using those Red Crescent cars," Shoshani told a briefing with journalists.

Asked how the troops knew that there were militants in the cars, he said: "It is based on different ways of intelligence and also based on the information gathered on the ground at the time of the event".

He said troops later also fired on other unmarked vehicles that approached without emergency lights or prior coordination.

"I can't go into the reasoning and what they did because this is under investigation," Shoshani said. "We will investigate this incident and once we have the answers, we'll put them out clearly and communicate everything we know and everything we've found," he said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent, which said eight of its staff had been killed in the incident, said Israel had targeted the group and called for those responsible to be held accountable.

The medical team had been sent into Rafah as Israeli forces were advancing into the area after resuming operations in Gaza on March 18, following a two month-long truce, UN officials have said.

When the bodies were found, they were still in their medical uniforms and wearing gloves.

U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher said the people had been killed by Israeli forces and demanded "answers and justice."

Shoshani denied reports that some bodies in the grave had been found with hands tied, and rejected the term "execution" to describe what happened during what he called "an operational event".

"Not an execution," he said.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Alison Williams, Peter Graff and Daniel Wallis)