Australia probe: Israel did not intentionally target World Central Kitchen workers in Gaza

Palestinians inspect a World Central Kitchen vehicle that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip on April 2, 2024. Photo by Atia Mohammed/Flash90.

(JNS) — The April 1 Gaza airstrike that killed seven international aid workers from World Central Kitchen was the result of mistaken identification, an Australian government investigation found on Aug. 2, confirming an IDF probe into the incident.

“Based on the information available to me, it is my assessment that the IDF strike on the WCK aid workers was not knowingly or deliberately directed against the WCK,” wrote former Australian Defence Force chief Air Chief Marshal (ret.) Mark Binskin, whom Canberra appointed to investigate the strike that killed Australian aid worker Lalzawmi Frankcom, 43, and six others.

Binskin’s investigation found that lower-level IDF officers decided to strike the convoy after mistakenly believing it was being hijacked by Hamas terrorists who were, in fact, unarmed local security guards.

“It appears that the IDF controls failed, leading to errors in decision-making and a misidentification, likely compounded by a level of confirmation bias,” said Binskin, who visited Israel as part of the probe.

The former military chief noted in his conclusions that the IDF probe was “timely, appropriate and, with some exceptions, sufficient.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in April called the incident a “tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people.

“It happens in war, we are thoroughly investigating it, we are in contact with the governments and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again,” the premier said.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi on April 3 took full responsibility for the incident and issued a formal apology, saying, “I want to be very clear — the strike was not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers. It was a mistake that followed a misidentification, at night during a war in very complex conditions. It shouldn’t have happened.”

Israeli ground forces entered the Gaza Strip on Oct. 27 following weeks of airstrikes in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led massacre, in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, wounded thousands more, and abducted more than 250 men, women and children to the enclave.