Pentagon report.

Violations of combat rules, human error and equipment failures led to the mistaken U.S. attack on a hospital in Afghanistan.

washington» Human error, violations of combat rules and untimely equipment failures led to last fall’s mistaken U.S. aerial attack on a charity-run hospital in Afghanistan that killed 42 people, a senior American general said Friday. Investigators called the attack a “disproportional response to a threat that didn’t exist.”

Sixteen military members were given administrative punishments that could stall or end careers, but no one faces a court-martial. A senior defense official said one of the disciplined was a two-star general.

The AC-130 gunship, bristling with side-firing cannons and guns, fired on the hospital in the northern city of Kunduz for 30 minutes before the mistake was realized and the attack was halted, Gen. Joseph Votel told a news conference as he released the Pentagon’s final report on the incident. The intended target was an Afghan intelligence agency building about 450 yards away.

No one involved knew the targeted compound was a hospital, Votel said, but investigators concluded the U.S. ground and air commanders should have known.

Votel expressed “deepest condolences” to those injured and to the families of those killed and said the U.S. government made “gesture of sympathy” payments of $3,000 to each injured person and $6,000 to each family of the killed.

Zabihullah Neyazi, a nurse who lost his left arm, left eye and a finger in the Oct. 3, 2015, attack, said administrative punishment for the American service members wasn’t enough and said a “trial should be in Afghanistan, in our presence, in the presence of the victims’ families, so they would be satisfied.”

Doctors Without Borders, the international charity organization whose hospital was destroyed, said Friday that it still wants an “independent and impartial” investigation.

It said the punishments were inadequate and “out of proportion” to the deaths, injuries and destruction caused by the mistaken attack.

Investigators concluded that certain personnel failed to comply with the rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict, but Votel said those failures did not amount to a war crime.