Killing of 5 Foreign Aid Workers from the World Central Kitchen

[cherryjamontoast]

I've just seen on social media graphic videos of 5 dead aid workers from Australia, Austrian and British. The WCK are the people responsible for the ships coming into Gaza at the Jetty to distribute food. This was the second ship that departed from Cyprus a few days ago. Once arriving at the jetty they had to distribute the food. They were targeted in an armoured vehicle in Deir el Balah by the IDF. Its now being pick up by the press.Very sad.

Sky News makes a pretty damming comment. I have to C&P the whole thing but the point at the end is the same as Alicia Kearns and others are making.

Analysis: A damning slur on a military that thinks of itself as being one of the best in the world
This wasn't an accident. It was no mistaken misfire.
The IDF cell tracking the vehicles fired lethal precision-guided missiles into each car, one after the other.
Through blurred nighttime surveillance footage, they saw what they thought was a man carrying a gun and assumed he was a Hamas fighter.
They then assumed everyone else travelling in the vehicles were also Hamas. There was no evidence for this.
They kept firing because they saw passengers still alive.
The basic failure to pass details of the aid convoy down the chain of command is a damning slur on a military that thinks of itself as being one of the best in the world.
The decision to launch air strikes with the intent of killing people, based on unsound evidence, raises deeply troubling questions of ethics in combat.
It's a sad irony that one of the only reasons World Central Kitchen were operating at night was because of their previously good working relationship with the Israeli military.
Had six of the seven killed not been foreign aid workers, whose deaths caused an international outcry, then this investigation would not have happened and the Israeli military would not have been forced to explain its actions.
How many Palestinian civilians therefore have been killed in similar, uninvestigated cases of mistaken identity, we will probably never know.

@Silence1 I also saw sky news said that journalists were shown some of the footage, but they were not shown the crucial footage of when the soldier misidentified the worker holding a bag as a gun. And that's the main part as that is what caused him to strike the convoy. I'm not saying it's a lie, it could also just be to save face as the footage might be obvious that it wasn't a gun, regardless the main footage was not shown to the journalists.

So it wasn't because it was too dark to see they were WCK vehicles then?

@FOJN apparently it was too dark to see the logo on top of the cars.

They were aiming for the aid convoy because they thought Hamas was travelling with them and even in the dark they managed to hit three targets spot on. Are they claiming they were just blindly aiming for moving vehicles and got lucky?

@FOJN there's alot of discrepancies and I think that's one of the reasons an independent investigation is needed.
Sky also found that the locations that they geolocated where the cars were found varies to what the IDF showed in their briefing to journalists.
And I suppose the main point of contention is that the IDF said the mistake was made due to misidentification, however the journalists were not shown the footage of the moment the soldier misidentified the aid worker for a militant.

Parkingt111

I agree, there's too much that doesn't make any sense. I wonder if the Israeli government/IDF will allow a full independent investigation. I would find a refusal quite telling.

It might not have been aid worker misidentified for Hamas militant, but an Israeli Air Force drone pilot not realising that the Israeli Navy inspected the aid at 20 nautical miles off the coast and then transferred it to an Israeli Navy boat to be brought the rest of the way in. This would then mean Israeli Navy are in and about the jetty and warehouses, and being military, would not go ashore unarmed. This process is described in the Times of Israel
https://www.timesofisrael.com/aid-from-cyprus-to-enter-gaza-via-idf-built-pier-eu-warns-of-pockets-of-famine/

It would explain why the footage has been edited. It would explain why the gunman has become a bagman.

Other militaries have had similar fuck ups. Most friendly fire deaths are due to Air Force—-> Army——>Navy——->Special Forces not getting the memo to each other on what the other branches are doing in a conflict zone.

There was that incident earlier where an Israeli Air Force fighter jet bombed some dozen Israeli Army troops that were setting explosives to demolish a building, the air strike set off a chain of explosions, collapsing the building on them.

So it is possible that the coordination and misidentification failure wasn’t anything to do with WCK, but internal to IDF.

The engine in the drone seems to have been designed and manufactured here in the UK.

Had six of the seven killed not been foreign aid workers, whose deaths caused an international outcry, then this investigation would not have happened and the Israeli military would not have been forced to explain its actions.
How many Palestinian civilians therefore have been killed in similar, uninvestigated cases of mistaken identity, we will probably never know

Ian Hislop on Have I got News For You tonight has also stated this. I am glad that people are linking the murdered aid workers to something that could be happening to Palestinians unnoticed and not letting the IDF get away with it potentially being a once off.

Hopefully the pressure stays on, and seres and other humanitarian routes stay open. This whole aid by ship thing was so unnecessary in the first place.

*Erez crossing

As a genuine question if as some posters strongly believe that this was an intentional and deliberate attack on aid workers.

Then given the Israelis had advance notification of the vehicles, times and routes, why would they use three missiles at a cost of $225,000 each plus the cost of the drone flight - so roughly $750,000 in total to kill 7 aid workers when it would have been easier, simpler and much cheaper to have shot them at a check point?

Not as easy to claim mistaken identity at a checkpoint.

I don't think it can be proven what the intention was, it is obvious though it was a deliberate attack, imo they knew it was an aid convoy possibly thought there may have been a Hamas militant with it and took the risk which they have been doing with all attacks. They are not waiting for definitive evidence just attacking regardless in the hope that eventually they'll get Hamas, the number of civilians killed is of no relevance to them. The one good thing that has come from this is that peoples eyes are being opened to the indiscriminate killing without evidence of militants being in the vicinity. They are not targeted attacks they are wishful thinking attacks.

@Hoppinggreen

OK then - a "stray" artillery shell or roadside bomb or even a regular anti tank missile- all of which would be considerably simpler, easier and cheaper if the intention was deliberate.

@Dulra

"imo they knew it was an aid convoy possibly thought there may have been a Hamas militant with it and took the risk which they have been doing with all attacks."

So if I got it right then iyo they were willing to kill seven aid workers in order to get one Hamas militant. Which may or may not be true but as you correctly point out it will be very difficult for anyone to prove or know exactly what happened.

But that still doesn't explain why they would spend $750,000 on the attack when they knew the vehicles, times and routes and therefore there were a lot of simpler, easier and cheaper ways to kill them.

That’s the official version as well isn’t it ? They thought they saw a Hamas member with a bag and they were trying to kill it.

the member with the bag was one of the aid workers.

Another version is that They think the Hamas member stayed in the warehouse.

@1dayatatime I think the attack demonstrates how little value is placed on Palestinian lives. If what the IDF said is true than they didn't know they were international aid workers. Then it shows they were willing to kill everyone in that convoy because they thought one person had a gun. That was what they said was the 'misidentification' as it later turned out to be a bag.
If those were Palestinian aid workers then nobody would have batted an eyelid at their deaths and nobody would have been held accountable. Nobody would have clarified it was a bag and not a gun and if asked then the IDF, after their deaths would have just labelled them all as Hamas terrorists who deserved to die.
So to me it demonstrates a clear and transparent lack of any value of Palestinian life, and there are many in MSM and in real life who have pointed this out too.

Thought they were aware about who was on the cars as the organisation had arranged everything with idf so they can’t say they didn’t know they were aid workers.

the rest I agree with you. 200 aid workers have been killed. International governments have finally criticised Israel for killing aid workers when their passports weren’t Palestinians

@EasterIssland they had shared their co-ordinates with the IDF but the IDF said due to the dark they couldn't see the WCK logo on top of the car. If I am honest the IDF story has alot of discrepancies as I have said before and I believe even the Australian government have said they are not satisfied with the response. However the above was based on even if I did believe everything the IDF said.
Ordinary Gazans really don't stand a chance when it seems the IDF MO seems to be that all males are Hamas militants unless proven otherwise, rather than the other way round.

But whether it was a deliberate attempt to kill the aid workers or a mistake where they thought one of them was Hamas but the rest were "collateral" this still doesn't explain why they would use a drone attack and three missiles at a cost of $750,000 when they knew the vehicles, the route and the times.

There were a lot of simple, easier and cheaper ways to achieve the same result.

Are we actually supposed to think that because you keep arguing that this doesnt make financial sense that it was obviously a complete accident?
You are either rather naive or grasping at straws to defend the indefensible

@1dayatatime what do you think happened? Genuine question do you think a button was pressed by mistake?
The IDF said themselves that they attacked the convo deliberately because of misidentification. They thought one of the aid workers was a hamas militant holding a gun, when in reality it was an aid worker holding a bag.
This is something they have openly said as part of their explanation, its not my own theory.
Which is why they attacked each car separately. They first did an air strike on the first car. The second car came and picked up the wounded from the first and then the second car was struck. The third car came back and then the third car was struck. It was three separate strikes. This again is what was said by the IDF.