Israeli Military Investigation Finds ‘Grave Mistakes’ Led To Aid Convoy Strikes, Fires Two Senior Officers

Palestinians are standing next to a vehicle in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on April 2, 2024, where employees from the World Central Kitchen (WCK), including foreigners, were killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to the NGO. (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via AP)

The Israeli military has dismissed two senior officers and formally suspended two others following deadly drone strikes in Gaza that killed seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers on a food-delivery mission.

The move comes at the conclusion of an investigation of the incident which found the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) misidentified the volunteers and breached “operational procedure” in conducting second and third strikes on the convoy. The account is one of communication failure and false assumptions that will likely raise broader questions about military procedure and conduct.

Yoav Har-Even, who led the investigation, concluded that WCK had correctly provided the IDF in advance with information about the convoy and had the non-profit’s logo displayed on the vehicle’s roofs.

Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli body overseeing aid into Gaza, would have shared this information with Southern Command to alert them of the convoy’s presence and mission. Southern Command were operating armed-drone surveillance flights in the area.

However, he said that the information on the aid convoy’s status and location “stopped somewhere” along this chain-of-command, meaning that the military unit and drone pilot who undertook the strikes could not identify the convoy. The camera on the drone could not pick up the WCK logos on the vehicles at night.

After examining “radio communication” the investigation found that the IDF unit believed “they were striking cars that had been seized by Hamas.”

“Following a misidentification by the forces, the forces targeted the three WCK vehicles based on the misclassification of the event and misidentification of the vehicles as having Hamas operatives inside them, with the resulting strike leading to the deaths of seven innocent humanitarian aid workers,” the IDF said.

The IDF added: “The strike on the aid vehicles is 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.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres were briefed on the findings late Thursday.

Speaking to foreign journalists gathered, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said: “It’s a tragedy. 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.”

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