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, APA reports citing Al Jazeera.
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” which led to the discovery of another.
“It’s a tragedy,” the Israeli military’s spokesman, Daniel Hagari, told reporters. “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.”
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 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 the warehouse where the 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”.
It 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”.
Reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands pointed out that the report by the Israeli military makes no mention of any potential legal 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.”
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