Israeli military fires two senior officers as report finds strike on aid workers was in ‘serious violation of commands’

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Friday that “those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives,” calling the attack “a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification.”

Seven aid workers – three Britons, a Palestinian, a US-Canadian dual citizen, an Australian and a Pole – were killed in Monday’s strikes on cars operated by the World Central Kitchen (WCK), setting off fury in those countries.

The IDF claimed in its preliminary findings on Friday that its forces “identified a gunman on one of the aid trucks, following which they identified an additional gunman,” as the trucks transported food to a warehouse in Gaza. It did not provide any more details about that claim.

Later, as three WCK vehicles left the warehouse, a commander “mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles and that these were Hamas terrorists,” the report said.

The report said the strike was carried out in “serious violation of the commands and IDF Standard Operating Procedures.” In addition to the two dismissed officers, other IDF officials were formally reprimanded.

WCK and the heads of many Western nations have called for an independent, third party investigation into the strikes, but Israel has committed only to the internal inquiry released Friday.

“The IDF cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza,” WCK said Friday in response to the preliminary findings. “Without systemic change, there will be more military failures, more apologies and more grieving families.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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