The Israeli army dismissed yesterday the two commanders involved in the attack on the caravan of the American oenagé World Central Kitchen (WCK), founded by the Spanish chef José Andrés, on Monday night, after obtaining the results of the investigation, which confirm that it was due to an “error” because it was believed that two armed Hamas militiamen were there. He has also reprimanded two senior army chiefs linked to the attack.
The investigation concluded that Israeli forces identified two “gunmen” in the aid trucks as the convoy headed to a warehouse in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, and when the vehicles left the scene later of the food unloading, “one of the commanders mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were inside the vehicles and that they were Hamas terrorists.” The findings do not differ from the version that military sources gave to Israeli media a few days ago.
According to the sequence of the attack that was revealed then and is now confirmed, the events lasted six minutes. A first missile hit the vehicle leading the convoy at 10:09 p.m. The survivors ran to take refuge in the next vehicle, walked a few meters and notified their supervisors of the attack. But this second car was also hit by another missile two minutes later. A third vehicle approached to help them, but after two minutes and 1.6 kilometers it was shot again. A distance of 2.4 kilometers separated the first vehicle from the last.
After analyzing the report’s findings, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi took the following measures: dismiss the fire support commander of the brigade, an officer with the rank of major, and the head of the brigade, a colonel in reserve; in addition to warning the commanders of both the brigade and the 162nd division, which operates in the center of the strip. Also, Halevi promised to “formally reprimand” the head of the Southern Command, for “his general responsibility in the incident”. “We take seriously the serious incident that claimed the lives of seven innocent humanitarian workers”, he lamented.
Although the convoy was perfectly identified and had coordinated its movements with the military, “the Israeli forces did not identify the vehicles in question as being associated with WCK” and the convoy was hit by three missiles (one for each vehicle that formed it), fired by a drone, an American-made Hermes 450. It was “a serious violation of the orders and standard operating procedures of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)”, concluded the report that was presented yesterday in Halevi. The investigation also pointed to “errors in decision-making”, without giving further details.
The Government of Poland, which has sent a diplomatic delegation to Tel-Aviv, like the rest of the Western allies from which the victims came, explains that they received the results of the report on Thursday. At that meeting, they were told that information about the convoy’s route was not properly transferred to a lower command level, in addition to other findings, explained Polish Foreign Affairs spokesman Pawel Wro?ski. “The third point we discussed is terrifying – he declared – after the first shot, although it was verified that the people who ran out of the convoy were unarmed, two more rockets were launched.” “It is still not clear if it was a mistake or a crime”, he exclaimed at a press conference yesterday. Warsaw has asked to participate in the investigation.
The inquiry, described by the army as “independent”, was carried out by the Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), a body led by Major General Yoav Har Even, tasked with providing as much information as possible to decide whether to open a criminal investigation into incidents in combat.
World Central Kitchen considered that the Israeli army “cannot credibly investigate its own failure” and demanded an independent commission to investigate the killings of its personnel. “Without a systemic change – he adds -, there will be more military failures, more apologies and more grieving families”.
In this context, Israel announced yesterday its intention to allow more aid to enter the enclave, and to open the Erez crossing from the north, after a call yesterday between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President of the United States, Joe Biden, who threatened to withdraw his support – which involves the shipment of weapons, the most recent on Monday, the same day of the attack on the humanitarian workers – if he did not improve the humanitarian situation in the enclave and did more to protect civilians.
For his part, the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, declared yesterday that Israel’s announcement that it will allow the temporary entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza “is not enough”, because “considerable and urgent efforts” are required ” to end “the use of hunger as a weapon of war”.
Meanwhile, in Geneva, the UN Office for Human Rights warned that attacks against humanitarian personnel in Gaza “may constitute a war crime”, as emphasized by its spokesman, Jeremy Laurence. Likewise, he recalled that attacks like the one suffered by the seven WCK workers highlight the “terrible conditions” in which people who participate in humanitarian missions operate in the strip. A reality widely denounced by the oenagés who work there.
In this sense, also in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution yesterday that calls for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, to which Israel reacted by calling the text “distorted” .
Twenty-eight countries voted in favor, thirteen abstained and six opposed the resolution, including the United States and Germany. The resolution underlines “the need to guarantee accountability for all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights standards to put an end to impunity.” It also expresses “deep concern at reports of serious violations of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law, including possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Meirav Eilon Shahar, accused the Council of having “abandoned the Israeli people for a long time and defended Hamas for a long time”. The US had pledged to vote against the resolution because it did not contain a specific condemnation of Hamas for the October 7 attacks, nor “any reference to the terrorist nature of those actions.” However, its representative in the Council, Michèle Taylor, pointed out that Israel has not done enough to mitigate the damage to the civilian population. “In just six months, more humanitarian workers have died in this conflict than in any war in the modern era,” concluded Taylor.
