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.

@1dayatatime the IDF said themselves it was three separate strikes on each individual car. This isn't a theory. You can check any MSM news outlet who have reported on it.

They also said the reason was misidentification. They mistook a bag for a gun and therefore fired and killed everyone. Again not a theory but as reported by the IDF.

That's a good point I didn't know it cost that much. It actually makes the whole thing alot worse by their own admission of what happened.

Not sure if everyone has read this Guardian article, about the IDF “Lavender” system, for identifying possible Hamas operatives based on AI (the IDF intelligence officers interviewed unsurprisingly wouldn’t discuss the algorithms, so it could have been as blunt as “are you a Palestinian male aged 18-25?” - they identified 37000 potential targets just based on this algorithm, no objective evidence.

They were then allowed to kill up to 100 completely innocent civilians in order to kill these AI-identified targets. It was preferred to target them by bombing their homes at night, as it was easier.

So just imagine this for a moment. AI identifies your 20 year old, entirely innocent nephew as a possible Hamas foot soldier, based on his age and social media footprint. The IDF then greenlight bombing of your entire neighbourhood, killing 100 entirely innocent people, to get at him.

Assuming this is true (Israel hasn’t denied it, and it has enough detail that it doesn’t sound made up), how is this not a war crime?

This is a war crime.

It’s killing civilians!!

Tens of thousands of them!

I’d assume those things take time to set up, whereas a drone attack is ready to go and actively looking for targets to hit each night.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting Netanyahu ordered this as part of a long-planned attack on international aid. Or they would just not have let WCK land and unload.

We’re saying the IDF think anyone in Gaza is fair game, and will kill whoever they want to kill regardless of the collateral damage, and without checking too closely who they are actually targeting.

@Saschka yes what I was trying to say but you articulated it better thank you

I have no idea how much arms cost but I'm shocked by that figure, god as a species we are seriously effed up.

I'm not sure why you keep focusing on the price of the weapons? Or why you think any of us can answer why they used what they used, have you a theory?

Looking at everything now, unfortunately the deaths or I would say murders of the foreign aid workers has become a pivotal moment for Israeli allies in this war. It seems to be the tipping point of where a line is drawn and where the way the war is being conducted can no longer be openly supported. Biden has now given his ultimatum, but what a shame that it took this long and the deaths of these seven beautiful souls before he did.
And what a shame that the deaths of over thirty thousand Palestinians does not seemingly hold the same value.

@Parkingt111

"Genuine question do you think a button was pressed by mistake? "

It is impossible to ever know exactly what happened and even if there was evidence one way or the other then this would be dismissed by the "other side".

But if I had to hazard a guess I would say that after six months of drone attacks that finding genuine Hamas targets is becoming harder and harder, especially individuals in vehicles ( if you were a Hamas member would you travel around by vehicle?) So you had a drone operator late at night looking for targets and not finding much.

Along comes three vehicles that are not Israeli on a clear coastal road and it looks like an easy hit and presumes it's not civilian because they are together.

The drone operator doesn't check to see if they had a right to be there (aid convoy) or if he does then he gets a green light from the next level up who also doesn't check. They then target all three vehicles.

In short a trigger happy drone operator who is finding his job increasingly harder gets presented with an easy three targets and just doesn't bother or care about doing the necessary checks (including whether it was simply civilian vehicles). He just wants to blow people and stuff up.

@Dulra

"have you a theory?"

I genuinely don't think it was a deliberate attack on the aid vehicles. I do think that you have trigger happy drone operators along with a non functioning chain of command not caring about who or what they blow up.

I don’t trust Biden. Few days ago they were approving sending weapons to Israel (think it was around the same time of the deaths of the aid workers). Think he’s trying to please pro Israel and pro ceasefire groups and keeping both angry

@EasterIssland oh yes I agree. Trying to keep everyone happy aswell as retain his seat in the next election and possibly failing at both

@1dayatatime that could be a plausible explanation for it.
But I think it leads to the next question at what emboldened the soldier/commander to take such drastic action at a whim with such disregard for innocent life?
To me it would seem that it's the normal way the war is conducted, it's just this time it's caused an outcry because of who was killed.

Can I ask how you arrived at $750,000? I've seen the model of the drone mentioned but not the specific type of missile or any mention of the cost.

The logo detail is strange. They had tracked the vehicles from the warehouse which is where they claim to have seen the suspected Hamas member with a gun. The "man with a gun" is their justification so I'm not sure why they have mentioned not being able to see the logo. They knew what the convoy was or they are admitting to firing on a random vehicles.

They have admitted they targeted an aid convoy because they they claim they thought there was an armed Hamas member in one of the vehicles.

In the article Saschka links to it mentions that the IDF consider 15-20 civilians casualties for a low level Hamas operative or 100 civilian casualties for a high level Hamas member to be acceptable "collateral damage". The deaths in the attack on the WCK convoy are well within those limits.

I've seen a couple of people mention (former military and intelligence) that the drone control centre would have been staffed by senior military and intelligence officers, as well as the drone operators, who would have had to give authorisation for a drone strike. This was not the result of an incompetent junior soldier. It's either incompetence at all levels of the IDF and intelligence services or it's deliberate murder and they are only sorry they got found out.

@FOJN

Sure.

Three Spike missiles at a cost of $225,000 each ($675,000).

Plus the hourly operational cost of the Hermes drone. I have no idea how long it was flying around for before the strike but let's say 6 hours for which $75,000 would cover the drones cost (fuel, maintenance etc) plus the command and control costs (who I think clearly didn't do their job).

Comes to approximately $750,000.

@Parkingt111

"But I think it leads to the next question at what emboldened the soldier/commander to take such drastic action at a whim with such disregard for innocent life?"

Normally there are a really stringent checks required for drone operators with the maxim being "if there is any doubt then there is no doubt about not launching an attack ".

So what emboldened the soldier / commander to ignore all these checks and basically do what they want - effectively he / she wanted to blow people or stuff up on their shift before handing over, trying to find genuine verified targets has become much harder as the war progresses, combined with not really caring about civilian casualties.

I would say after six months of Hamas doing a good job of hiding from the IDF who in their right minds would think it even remotely feasible that they’d be in a convoy of three vehicles driving at night.

Hamas have shown they are not stupid, so why would they be this time.
I would think a convoy would be worthy of further investigation before I pulled a trigger or pressed a button.

So yes, it’s kill first say sorry if we’re found out

Its because if he WAS mistaken (and lets be charitable and say it might have been a mistake) the negative consequences for him would be minimal.
The Israeli government and his superior officers are probably much more annoyed that his actions have shone a spotlight on what they are doing than the fact that he was responsible for the deaths of innocent aid workers.
And thats assuming it wasnt a deliberate tactic to stop aid and speed up the starvation of the Palestinian people

@1dayatatime i did read an article in the times where a senior commander was talking about the growing culture amongst the IDF operating in Gaza of 'shoot first, ask questions later' so that would make sense also of what happened here. Especially amongst those lower down the chain of command, who up till now may have been acting recklessly with no consequences.
Either way this one single incident now brings into question the extremely high civilian death toll.
I believe it was one of the top US officials who pointed out that this one single incident serves as proof of why the US cannot support the IDF to carry out a ground invasion of Rafah.

In the article Saschkalinks to it mentions that the IDF consider 15-20 civilians casualties for a low level Hamas operative or 100 civilian casualties for a high level Hamas member to be acceptable "collateral damage". The deaths in the attack on the WCK convoy are well within those limits.

I don't believe this.
I don't believe they would say 100 civilian casualties is acceptable collateral damage if they weren't Palestinians. I don't believe the IDF would kill 15/100 Israeli citizens or citizens of other nations to get one Hamas operative embedded amongst them. That's if this info is even true about IDF calculations.

@Kendodd if I'm honest I was quite taken aback by that figure too. In any case I believe this is the article they were referring too if you did want to read it

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes

This is another article on it which cites the same figures. I believe the US have said they are going to look into these concerning reports.
Whether it's 100% true or not I don't know, I suppose more will come to light if it is investigated further.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240405-un-chief-deeply-troubled-by-reports-israel-using-ai-to-identify-gaza-targets

OK, I need to rephrase my question; where did the information about spike missiles come from? I've seen it "alleged" but not confirmed.

Yes - I don’t think the IDF deliberately attacked aid workers - that would make no sense. it’s an own goal for them because the whole horrible incident sheds a light on their lack of safeguards to make sure targets are legitimate. It suggests they view life in Gaza as cheap.