A series of Israeli failures, including a breakdown in communication and violations of the rules of engagement, led to the deadly airstrikes that killed seven humanitarian aid workers in Gaza this week, senior Israeli military officials said on Friday.
The military officials said that the officers who ordered the strikes on the aid convoy had violated the army’s protocols, in part by opening fire on the basis of insufficient and erroneous evidence that a passenger in one of the cars was armed.
The attack ignited a wave of international outrage and renewed questions about whether Israeli forces on the ground in Gaza properly vet targets before unleashing deadly force. Israel has come under increasing pressure over the high civilian death toll in its six-month war in Gaza. The strikes on the aid workers prompted President Biden for the first time to say he would leverage U.S. aid to influence the conduct of the war against Hamas.
On Friday, the Israeli military announced that two officers — a colonel and a major — would be dismissed from their positions. In a statement, the military said the “grave mistake” had stemmed from “a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures.”
“It’s a tragedy,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, told reporters in a briefing on Thursday night. “It’s a serious event that we’re responsible for, and it shouldn’t have happened.”
World Central Kitchen, the relief group whose aid workers were killed, called the Israeli military’s statements “cold comfort” and reiterated its call for an independent inquiry. The aid organization’s operations — which have distributed millions of meals to Gazans — remained suspended, the group said.
“It’s not enough to simply try to avoid further humanitarian deaths, which have now approached close to 200,” the group’s founder, José Andrés, said in a statement. “All civilians need to be protected, and all innocent people in Gaza need to be fed and safe. And all hostages must be released.”
According to the military, Israeli forces began striking the World Central Kitchen convoy at 10:09 p.m. on Monday, as the vehicles made their way along Gaza’s coast. The attack killed six foreign nationals and a Palestinian, all of whom had worked to handle the food aid that had arrived in Gaza by sea.
Like many aid groups, the World Central Kitchen had sought to ensure its workers’ safety in Gaza, where, according to local health officials, Israel’s campaign against Hamas has killed more than 32,000 people.
The workers had coordinated their mission in advance with the Israeli military, and the roofs of the vehicles had been marked with the World Central Kitchen’s logo.
Despite those safeguards, a series of critical errors led the troops to open fire on the convoy, according to the results of the military’s preliminary inquiry. Drone footage, the inquiry found, had not captured the organization’s logo in the dark; some officers did not review documentation showing that the convoy included civilian cars; and a drone operator had identified incorrectly an aid worker, who was most likely carrying a bag, as a member of an armed Palestinian group with a gun.
The seven aid workers had arrived in northern Gaza earlier on Monday to help deliver more than 100 tons of food aid, according to World Central Kitchen. Their trucks left around 9 p.m. and headed south for the group’s warehouse, according to the Israeli military.
Along the coastal road, the trucks met with cars who joined their convoy, according to the military. Shortly after, a gunman appeared to fire a single round from the roof of one of the trucks, according to Maj. Gen. Yoav Har-Even, a reserve officer who oversees the military’s investigations into potential cases of wartime misconduct.
After the convoy arrived at the warehouse, Israeli drone footage captured what officials said were more gunmen at the scene. The Israeli military screened videos for reporters at the briefing on Thursday. The New York Times could not independently verify the military’s video.
The officers were convinced that the scene they had witnessed resembled what they said were previous attempts by Hamas militants to seize humanitarian aid in Gaza, the officials said. Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the accusation.
The cars then left the warehouse — three cars went south and one went north, the military officials said.
Within four minutes, at least one Israeli drone struck each of the three vehicles in the southbound convoy as they traveled south one behind the other, killing all seven passengers, the Israeli officials said.
Some aid workers in the vehicle that was first struck fled to the next vehicle for protection, the officials said. That vehicle was hit, too.
The soldiers’ decision to fire on the second and third car, assuming wrongly that they were also harboring militants, failed to meet the Israeli military’s open-fire protocols, the officials said.
“This was against the rules of engagement,” General Har-Even said.
A fundamental failure, the officials said, was that the drone operator and his commanding officers were unaware that the humanitarian convoy included not only the aid trucks but also several civilian cars.
The soldiers, uninformed that World Central Kitchen had received approval from the army for the cars, assumed that the additional vehicles were not part of the convoy and had been carrying armed Palestinian militants, the officials added.
Asked why the soldiers had been unaware, General Har-Even said that certain officers had not seen the coordination documentation. In reality, the cars were carrying the aid workers.
“No excuses,” Gen. Har-Even said, describing the communications failure.
Critics have said that the Israeli military has shown a disregard for Palestinian civilians in its campaign to root out Hamas, the militant group whose deadly attack on Oct. 7 killed 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Asked whether the military was concerned that more cases of indiscriminate fire had occurred over months of intensive Israeli fire across the Gaza Strip, Admiral Hagari said that the military took pains to protect Palestinian civilians.
Referring to the strikes on the aid convoy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “deeply regrets the tragic incident.”
During a phone call with Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday, the White House said, Mr. Biden described the attack on the aid convoy and the overall humanitarian situation in Gaza as “unacceptable.”
Mr. Biden threatened to condition future support for Israel on how it addresses his concerns about civilian casualties and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, prompting Israel to commit to permitting more food and other supplies into the besieged enclave.
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