The Israeli military says it has dismissed two officers and reprimanded three others for their roles in an attack in central Gaza that killed seven aid workers, saying they had mishandled critical information and violated the army’s rules of engagement.
The military said in a report on Friday that an internal investigation “found that the forces identified a gunman on one of the aid trucks” that led to the discovery of another.
“It’s a serious event that we are responsible for, and it shouldn’t have happened, and we will make sure that it won’t happen again,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters.
The United States-based charity World Central Kitchen (WCK), whose convoy was hit, said Israel’s “apologies for the outrageous killing of our colleagues represent cold comfort”, and it called for an independent investigation into the attack.
WCK CEO Erin Gore also said: “Israel needs to take concrete steps to assure the safety of humanitarian aid workers. Our operations remain suspended.”
The Israeli military said that after the vehicles left a warehouse where WCK aid had been unloaded, “one of the commanders mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles and that these were Hamas terrorists.”
Its report called the strike on the aid vehicles “a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures”.
“It’s very important that Israel is taking full responsibility for this incident. It’s also important that it appears to be taking steps to hold those responsible accountable,” said United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
He said Israel must “prioritise the protection of civilians” and steps should be taken to ensure something like this never happens again.
Reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands pointed out that Israel’s report makes no mention of any potential prosecutions against the dismissed officers.
“That might come in the future, but it’s certainly not contained in the report,” he said. “What we’re getting is dismissals and military reprimands. But that’s not necessarily justice for the family and friends of the people who died.”
‘Abandoning fighters’ in middle of war
Those dismissed were a fire support commander holding the rank of major and a brigade chief of staff holding the rank of colonel in reserve, the Israeli military said.
It also formally reprimanded the commander of the brigade involved and the division commander. Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi reprimanded the commander of the Southern Command “for his overall responsibility for the incident”.
Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, accused the military leadership of “abandoning” its soldiers.
“The chief of staff’s decision to dismiss senior officers is an abandonment of the fighters in the middle of a war and a serious mistake that conveys weakness,” the far-right minister wrote on X. “Even if there are mistakes in identification, soldiers are backed up in war.”
Poland, which is in a diplomatic dispute with Israel after losing one of its nationals in the strikes, demanded criminal action be brought against Israel for the “murder” of the aid workers.
“We want [Polish] prosecutors to be added and implicated in the explanations and in the entire criminal and disciplinary procedure for the soldiers responsible for this … murder,” Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna said.
The WCK called for the creation of an independent commission to investigate the killing of its colleagues, saying the Israeli military “cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza”.
“It is also clear from their preliminary investigation that the IDF has deployed deadly force without regard to its own protocols, chain of command and rules of engagement. Without systemic change, there will be more military failures, more apologies and more grieving families,” WCK said.
Hunger called heart of Israel’s war on Gaza
“It’s not enough to simply try to avoid further humanitarian deaths, which have now approached close to 200,” WCK founder Jose Andres said. “All civilians need to be protected, and all innocent people in Gaza need to be fed and safe, and all hostages must be released.”
The group said that “the root cause of the unjustified rocket fire on our convoy is the severe lack of food in Gaza”.
It said if Israel is serious about supporting humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians as it continues to claim, it must dramatically increase the volume of food and medicine traveling into the enclave through land crossings.
The charity said it is “proud to have fed families across Israel after October 7, and we continue to demand the release of all hostages” but Palestinian families have the same universal right to food, water and medicine, which they have increasingly been without as the Israeli military expanded its war.
The United Nations, international agencies and Israel’s allies have also said Israel must allow in more humanitarian aid because famine is imminent across the Gaza Strip, especially in the north, which was invaded by Israeli ground forces first.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after he had a tense phone call on Thursday with US President Joe Biden that the Israeli military will reopen the Beit Hanoon (Erez) land crossing “temporarily” and activate the port in Ashdod to get more aid to Gaza.
It framed this as “necessary to ensure the continuation of the fighting and to achieve the goals of the war”.
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