Israeli military blames mistaken identity in aid workers’ deaths; dismisses two officers

The Israeli military dismissed two officers Friday after finding that a fatal strike this week killing seven workers with the charity group World Central Kitchen (WCK) should not have occurred.

A preliminary investigation carried out by the Israeli Joint Chiefs of Staff found that the military mistakenly thought a convoy carrying the workers — who had communicated their movements to the military — were armed Hamas fighters and not from WCK.

“The strike on the aid vehicles is a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures,” the Israeli military said in a Friday announcement revealing the preliminary findings.

The investigation was presented to the military’s top commander, Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, as well as to WCK staff members and international ambassadors and journalists.

Based on the findings, Halevi decided to fire the brigade fire support commander who had the rank of a major and a brigade chief of staff who had the rank of a colonel in reserve.

Israel also reprimanded a brigade commander, a 162nd Division commander and a commander of the Southern Command.

“The [Israeli Defense Forces] takes seriously the grave incident that claimed the lives of seven innocent humanitarian aid workers,” the military said in the announcement. “We express our deep sorrow for the loss and send our condolences to the families and the WCK organization.

“We consider the vital humanitarian activity of international aid organizations to be of utmost importance, and we will continue to work to coordinate and assist their activities, while ensuring their safety and safeguarding their lives.”

WCK said in a statement the military had taken “important steps” for taking responsibility for the incident and taking disciplinary action against officers.

But the WCK said Israel has also “deployed deadly force without regard to its own protocols, chain of command and rules of engagement.”

“Without systemic change, there will be more military failures, more apologies and more grieving families,” WCK said. “The root cause of the unjustified rocket fire on our convoy is the severe lack of food in Gaza. Israel needs to dramatically increase the volume of food and medicine traveling by land if it is serious about supporting humanitarian aid.”

WCK called for an independent investigation, as did Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The strike underscored how deadly the Gaza war has been for humanitarian aid workers; more than 200 of them have died since the conflict broke out in October.

“Their apologies for the outrageous killing of our colleagues represent cold comfort,” WCK CEO Erin Gore said in a statement. “It’s cold comfort for the victims’ families and WCK’s global family.”

The fatal strike Monday hit the aid convoy carrying the WCK staff three times in what the charity group’s founder José Andrés said was Israel “systematically” targeting his workers. The incident led him to suspend operations in Gaza, where humanitarian aid is desperately needed.

The Biden administration has also pushed Israel to do more to get humanitarian aid access into Gaza, where the United Nations is warning of a famine in the north. Biden also expressed some of his harshest language yet after the WCK strike and had a tense phone call with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

Friday’s preliminary investigation said Israeli forces had identified two gunmen on the aid convoy. After it left the warehouse, “one of the commanders mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles and that these were Hamas terrorists,” Israel said.

“The forces did not identify the vehicles in question as being associated with WCK,” the military said. “The strikes on the three vehicles were carried out in serious violation of the commands and IDF Standard Operating Procedures.”

Updated at 7:59 a.m. ET