The Israeli army yesterday dismissed the two commanders involved in the attack against the caravan of the American NGO 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” in believing that two armed Hamas militiamen were traveling in it. He has also reprimanded two other senior army officers linked to the attack.
The investigation concluded that Israeli forces identified two “gunmen” in the aid trucks while the convoy was heading to a warehouse in the central Gaza city of Deir al Balah and when the vehicles left the site after unloading. of the food, “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 event 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, traveled several meters and notified those responsible for 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 received another shot. A distance of 2.4 kilometers separated the first vehicle from the last.
After analyzing the report's conclusions, the chief of the General Staff, Herzi Halevi, adopted the following measures: dismissing the brigade's fire support commander, an officer with the rank of major, and the brigade chief, a colonel in the booking; in addition to admonishing the commanders of both the brigade and the 162nd division, which operates in the center of the strip. Likewise, Halevi promised to “formally reprimand” the head of the Southern Command, for “his overall responsibility for him in the incident.” “We take seriously the serious incident that claimed the lives of seven innocent aid 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 to Halevi yesterday. The investigation also pointed to “errors in decision-making,” without providing 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, says that on Thursday they received the results of the report. In that meeting they were told that the information about the convoy route was not correctly transferred to a lower level of command, in addition to the other conclusions, as explained by the Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman, Pawel Wroński. “The third point we have discussed is terrifying,” he declared, “after the first shot, even though it was found 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 yesterday at a press conference. Warsaw has asked to participate in the investigation.
The investigation, which the army describes as “independent,” was carried out by the Fact Investigation and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), a body led by Major General Yoav Har Even, charged with providing as much information as possible to decide whether A criminal investigation is opened into incidents in combat.
World Central Kitchen considered that the Israeli military “cannot credibly investigate its own failure” and demanded an independent commission to investigate the murders of its personnel. “Without 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 entry into the enclave, and to open the Erez crossing to the north, after a phone call yesterday between Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu and US President 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 the humanitarian situation in the enclave did not improve and they 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 to Gaza "is not enough", because "considerable and urgent efforts" are required to put an end to it. to the use of hunger as a weapon of war.”
Meanwhile, in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Office warned that attacks against humanitarian personnel in Gaza “may constitute a war crime,” according to its spokesman, Jeremy Laurence. Likewise, he recalled that attacks like the one suffered by the seven WCK workers show the “terrible conditions” in which people who participate in humanitarian missions in the strip operate. A reality widely denounced by NGOs working on the ground.
In this sense, also in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council yesterday adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, to which Israel reacted by crossing out the text as "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 ensure accountability for all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law to end impunity.” It also expresses “deep concern at reports of serious human rights violations and serious breaches 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 "long abandoned the Israeli people and long defended Hamas." The US had committed to voting 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, her representative on 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 aid workers have died in this conflict than in any war in the modern era,” Taylor said.
