Israel’s military has dismissed two senior officers after deciding that the Monday attack which killed seven food aid workers in Gaza was in “serious violation” of its commands.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had said on Friday that “those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives.”
They had also called the attack “a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification.”
In addition to dismissing two officers, other IDF officials had also been formally reprimanded.
The report had said that the strike was carried out in “severe violation of the commands and IDF Standard Operating Procedures.”
The seven aid workers who were milled in Monday’s strikes included: three Britons, a Palestinian, a US-Canadian dual citizen, an Australian and a Polish citizen.
They were killed in Monday’s strikes on cars operated by the World Central Kitchen (WCK), sparking fury in those countries.
WCK and the leaders of many Western nations have called for an independent, third party investigation into the strikes, but Israel has focused on only to the internal inquiry released Friday.
Though the Israeli military had admitted its guilt in the deaths of the aid workers (a rarity), the IDF’s Friday statement was brief and lacked a detailed explanation of precisely how and why its commands were flouted.
The killings of the aid workers ahas hardened the ire of Western countries towards Israel’s conduct in Gaza, and sped up debates in several nations about whether military aid to Israel should be halted.
Meanwhile, the US President, Joe Biden has called the deaths of aid workers and the overall humanitarian situation in Gaza “unacceptable”, declaring that US support would depend on “measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.”
