VOLUNTEERS’ DEADLY FINAL JOURNEY
10pm Eight trucks set off with 300tons of World Central Kitchen (WCK) food aid from pier near Deir al-Balah on the central Gaza coast. Aid was moved at night to avoid ‘stampedes’ of hungry people, with WCK giving the army full details of vehicles and route. 10.28pm The IDF claims an armed gunman boards one of the trucks and ‘fires his weapon’. Israelis fear convoy ‘has been hijacked by Hamas’. Moments later four pick-up trucks with WCK logos on their rooves join the convoy, but drone operator says they did not see stencils ‘in the dark’. Drone footage appears to show a person shooting an automatic rifle from the top of a truck. 10.46pm Convoy follows agreed route and stops at the WCK warehouse, Hangar A, where the alleged ‘gunman’ got off. IDF commander tries to contact WCK but the charity's security officer can’t contact the team on the ground. Air force drone picks up ‘15 to 20 individuals outside the hangar, at least two to four of them are identified as carrying weapons’. 10.47pm to 10.55pm An Israeli commanding officer back at base concludes they are Hamas operatives, but orders team not to strike ‘so as not to risk the humanitarian convoy’. 10.55pm Trucks remain in the hangar, but the four pick-ups drive away. One drives north towards Hangar B, the other three carrying seven aid workers go west towards the coast. The brigade-level ‘cell’ commanding the drone believes they saw an armed man getting into one of the three vehicles heading west. 11.06pm Two to four ‘gunmen’ identified getting out of the pick-up truck at Hangar B. Rules of engagement forbid a strike so close to an aid warehouse. 11.09pm The drone team believe ‘the humanitarian mission has finished and they are tracking at least one Hamas gunman’. The Hermes 450 drone fires on one of the three pick-up trucks on the coast. People get out and run to the second car.
11.11pm IDF operators decide to hit the second vehicle ‘against standard operating procedure’.
Those inside flee to final surviving soft-shelled car.
11.13pm They strike the third and final car. All seven aid workers are killed.