According to an article in the newspaper “Haaretz”, the Israeli military knew that the vehicles, hit by a deadly strike on Monday April 1 in the Palestinian enclave, belonged to World Central Kitchen. They targeted them because they believed an armed individual was among the passengers.
“It was an error that followed a poor identification at night, during a war, in very complex conditions. This shouldn’t have happened.» This Wednesday, through the voice of General Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of its army, Israel admitted having committed a mistake by striking a convoy of the American NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) on Monday evening, killing seven workers humanitarians. The head of the Hebrew state, Isaac Herzog, had announced a few hours earlier that “his deep sadness and his sincere apologies“. But an article published this Tuesday by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz casts doubt on the circumstances in which the tragedy occurred, calling into question the possibility of a simple “blunder”. According to the daily, which cites Israeli security sources, the soldiers deliberately targeted the NGO’s vehicles because they had spotted, in a truck which was traveling with them a little earlier, an armed man whom they suspected of being a terrorist.
At the time it was targeted, the WCK convoy was driving towards a logistics center in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, coming from a warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, where the NGO was organizing unloading of food by road. maritime. Its three vehicles are clearly identifiable as belonging to the humanitarian organization, and the route they are taking has been approved in advance by Israeli authorities. Alas: in an Israeli command room, soldiers order fire on the convoy. Three times, against each of the vehicles, while the victims tried as best they could to transfer the injured from one car to another to get them out of danger. The result of this relentlessness: seven deaths, i.e. all of the passengers in the convoy. A Palestinian, three Britons, an Australian, a Pole, an American-Canadian, aged between 25 and 57. “I am appalled that we, World Central Kitchen, and the world, lost beautiful lives today due to a targeted attack by Israeli forces», said the president of the NGO, Erin Gore.
“The inevitable result of the way the war is fought”
As for the armed man identified by the IDF, he remained with his truck in the Deir Al-Balah warehouse, and was therefore not hit by the strikes. “It’s frustrating. We do everything in our power to strike terrorists with precision, and in the end, units on the ground decide to launch attacks without any preparation, in cases that have nothing to do with protecting our armed forces», deplores a security source cited by Haaretz, in an attempt to confine the drama to an individual error. The Israeli left-wing daily indicates that the IDF considers this event as “a serious incident which risks having considerable effects on the continuation of the fighting in Gaza, due to the deterioration of international legitimacy» of the Israeli operation in the Palestinian enclave, where nearly 33,000 people have been killed since October 7, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, controlled by Hamas.
“It is unacceptable. But it’s the inevitable result of the way the war is fought», denounces the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres. The Israeli army promised an investigation into the circumstances of the attack to “limit the risk [que] it happens again» such a tragedy, when several dozen humanitarian workers have already been killed since the start of the war, including at least 150 members of UNRWA, the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees. According to Haaretz, emissaries from the Jewish state will be sent to the British, Australian, Polish, American and Canadian governments to personally present to them the conclusions of this investigation into the death of their nationals. In the meantime, WCK announced the suspension of its activities in the Gaza Strip. The NGO was one of the few still operating in the Palestinian territory, threatened by famine.