The Israeli military has sacked two senior brigade officers who ordered the strikes that killed seven aid workers in Gaza.
Israel says it was targeting a “Hamas gunman” when it killed the aid workers, with its military admitting a series of “grave mistakes” and violations of its own rules of engagement.
The victims – an Australian, Britons, a North American, a Palestinian and a Pole – were killed in three air strikes over four minutes by an Israeli drone as they ran for their lives between their three vehicles, the military said.
Poland’s foreign ministry said it still cannot understand how such an incident could have occurred. It demanded a “criminal inquiry” into Monday’s events.
The drone team who killed the aid workers made an “operational misjudgement of the situation” – including misidentifying an aidworker carrying a bag as a gunman – an internal Israeli military inquiry found.
The two brigade officers who ordered the strikes, a colonel and a major, are being fired.
The UN Human Rights Council on Friday adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip. The resolution also calls for a weapons ban on Israel.
The move came as Israel finally succumbed to unprecedented U.S. pressure and opened new food corridors into Gaza.
The vote by the UNHRC marks another moment in the slow global ostracization of Israel over its war in Gaza, which has so far killed an estimated 33,000 people. Twenty-eight countries voted in favor, 13 abstained and six voted against the resolution.
Charity demands independent probe into aid worker killings
A U.S.-based charity demanded on Friday that an independent commission investigate the killing of its seven aid workers in Gaza, saying the Israeli military “cannot credibly” probe its own failure.
World Central Kitchen said they want an “independent commission to investigate the killings” after the Israeli military admitted their deaths in a series of three drone strikes Monday was a “tragic mistake.”
Israel says it will allow “temporary” aid deliveries into famine-threatened northern Gaza, hours after the United States warned of a sharp shift in its policy over Israel’s war against Hamas militants.
Germany on Friday said Israel had “no more excuses” to delay the entry of aid, after nearly six months of war.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported at least 54 more people killed in Israeli strikes over the previous day.
In a tense, 30-minute phone call on Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that United States policy on Israel was dependent on the protection of civilians and aid workers in Gaza. It’s the first hint of possible conditions to military support from Washington, in the face of widespread condemnation from other countries. AFP
