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by: Kate Norman
IDF is investigating the recent fatal attack on WCK aid workers (illustrative).
Friday, 5 April 2024 | The Israeli military’s chief of staff apologized early Thursday morning following an Israeli strike that killed seven international aid workers on Monday night. It was a mistake, Israel Defense Forces [IDF] Chief of Staff Halevi said, adding that the incident is being investigated and that the IDF will work to ensure it does not happen again.
“It was a mistake that followed a misidentification—at night, during a war, in very complex conditions,” Halevi said in a video statement.
The foreign workers from World Central Kitchen [WCK] were traveling in a convoy of vehicles that were returning from delivering a large load of humanitarian food aid to a warehouse in Gaza.
Three of the vehicles were struck by missiles fired from Israeli drones, killing seven workers from Australia, Poland, three from the UK, a dual citizen from the US and Canada, and a Palestinian.
After noting that the IDF completed a preliminary investigation, Halevi stated: “I want to be very clear—the strike was not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers.”
The IDF chief of staff noted that “Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the people of Gaza.”
“We are sorry for the unintentional harm to the members of WCK,” Halevi added. “We share in the grief of their families, as well as the entire WCK organization, from the bottom of our hearts.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement posted on Twitter that Israel “deeply regrets the tragic incident” and that “our hearts go out to their families and to their home countries.”
“The IDF is conducting a swift and transparent investigation and we will make our findings public,” Netanyahu continued. “Israel is fully committed to enabling humanitarian aid to reach the civilian population in Gaza and we will do everything in our power to ensure that such tragedies do not occur in the future.”
In his video apology, Halevi praised the work of the WCK, “an organization whose people work across the globe, including in Israel, to do good in difficult conditions.”
These seven workers were the latest in a string of tragic deaths resulting in the war triggered by Hamas terrorists when they invaded Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.
Israel responded by launching a ground operation to wipe out Hamas from Gaza and ensure that the Iran-sponsored terrorist organization never again executes another day like October 7.
The fighting in the terror enclave is complicated, as Hamas fighters disguise themselves as unarmed civilians—journalists and humanitarian and medical workers—even escaped Israeli hostages. They also place their own people in harm’s way by conducting their operations from civilian sites, including homes, schools, mosques and hospitals.
The fighting situation on the ground in Gaza is so confusing that IDF soldiers accidentally killed three Israeli hostages in December who had escaped their captivity, mistaking them for Hamas fighters in disguise.
War is ugly, and the complicated urban setting in Gaza leads to devastating consequences.
Posted on April 5, 2024
Source: (Bridges for Peace, April 5, 2024)
Photo Credit: Yarin50/Wikimedia.org
Photo License: Wikimedia
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