Tragedy Strikes Aid Effort

Seven humanitarian aid workers were killed in a sequence of Israeli airstrikes on Monday night in what seems to have been a tragic case of mistaken identity. Initial investigations are under way but the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have admitted they were aware of the presence of the aid workers who were members of the World Central Kitchen – Israel’s preferred aid agency that has been working hard to feed Gazan civilians in recent months.

However, that information doesn’t seem to have got through to the local IDF forces who targeted, one after another, the three vehicles the aid workers were using to return from dropping off an aid delivery. The head of the IDF, Herzi Halevi, apologised in the early hours of Wednesday morning, saying that the strike was ‘a mistake that followed a misidentification, at night, in very complex war conditions.’

But apologies are not going to make much difference in this situation, as it reveals the extraordinary difficulty of continuing the fight against terrorists at the same time as allowing aid agencies into the area to deliver the huge amounts of food needed by the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

World Central Kitchen have stopped their aid operations for the moment, as has another aid agency. It looks as if a significant change in military operations will be needed for those aid deliveries to resume. The world awaits further information from the Israelis, both in terms of what actually happened and what they intend to do next.

This report by i24 News: