Israel to ‘adjust tactics’
ISRAEL said yesterday that it would adjust its Gaza war tactics after killing seven aid workers in an air strike that the military called an operational accident, though the process may take weeks while an investigation proceeds.
Monday’s incident has stoked Western anger at the mounting civilian toll in the Palestinian enclave, especially as the slain World Central Kitchen (WCK) staff included Australian, British and Polish citizens along with a US-Canadian dual national.
Israeli leaders have voiced sorrow over what they said was a misidentification of a WCK convoy at night in a combat zone.
Some local media reported, based on unnamed sources, that the convoy was hit repeatedly from the air despite having co-ordinated its route in advance with the military – possibly due to a false belief that gunmen were aboard it or close by.
WCK’s founder, chef Jose Andres, told Reuters he believed his food delivery team had been “systematically” targeted.
Israeli government spokesperson Raquela Karamson said during a media briefing: “This was unintended.”
A military investigation was under way, she said: “In the coming weeks, as the findings become clear, we will be transparent and share the results.
“Clearly something went wrong here, and as we learn more and the investigation reveals exactly what happened, and the cause of what happened, we will certainly adjust our practices in the future to make sure this does not happen again.”
Israel Ziv, a retired army general who formerly commanded the Gaza division, said the incident may have resulted from the military enabling more junior officers to authorise air strikes.
Whereas during quieter periods such an operation would require a green light from a division commander or a general in charge of regional forces, he said, “in wartime the situation is utterly transformed, because the number of threats is never-ending.
“If you don’t allow greater latitude, further down the ranks, on opening fire, you endanger troops and the war.”
Ziv noted that Israel, which went to war after Hamas gunmen rampaged in its southern towns and army bases on October 7, has been fighting both to destroy the Palestinian Islamists’ military capacity and deny them access to humanitarian aid sent to Gaza.
“That complicates the situation,” he said.
As a preliminary move to make amends for the WCK deaths, Israel said it would set up a joint operational co-ordination room with humanitarian agencies, located within the military’s Southern Command – where Gaza missions are directly managed.
An Israeli security official who spoke on condition of anonymity said ground forces in Gaza were down to around a quarter of their numbers at the height of the invasion, and focused on more pinpoint missions and securing conquered areas.
“This may have contributed to a feeling of ‘sitting duck’ vulnerability. Troops prefer to be on the offensive, rather than static and potentially open to attack or to seeing the enemy operate with relative freedom,” the official said.
“The investigation will have to determine, among other things, whether this kind of thinking affected the judgement of whoever decided that the convoy should be struck.”
More than 33 000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, Gazan medical officials say.
Hamas has said 6 000 of its fighters are among the fatalities.
Israeli officials say the Palestinian combatant death toll is more than twice as high.
“There is no war without mistakes – quite the opposite,” Ziv said. “But usually in this kind of combat the number of non-combatants killed, in relation to enemy dead, is higher than what the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) has caused (in Gaza).”
Meanwhile, three former Supreme Court justices have joined more than 600 members of the British legal profession in calling for the British government to halt arms sales to Israel, saying it could make Britain complicit in genocide in Gaza.
Their call was backed by two of the country’s leading intelligence experts, who argued that Britain needed to use any leverage it could to persuade Israel, and its biggest backer, the US, to change course in the conflict.
The British government has been a staunch ally of Israel since the eruption of hostilities on October 7, but Foreign Secretary David Cameron has hardened his language in recent months over the humanitarian situation.
Cameron said on March 8 that Israel had to be compliant with international humanitarian law for Britain to grant export licences allowing arms sales to Israel, and that a judgement on that was due in the “coming days”.
Senior members of Britain’s legal profession said the government needed to halt sales to avoid “aiding and assisting an international wrongful act”.
“The provision of military assistance and material to Israel may render the UK complicit in genocide as well as serious breaches of international humanitarian law,” they said in a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
One of the former justices, Jonathan Sumption, told BBC Radio he was concerned that the British government had lost sight of its own obligations under international law.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called any suggestion of genocide “outrageous”, and has said Israel has an “unwavering commitment to international law”.
Sunak has resisted calls to immediately halt weapons sales to Israel, saying the government adheres to a “very careful licensing regime”.
But the killing of seven aid workers, including three British nationals, in Israeli airstrikes this week has ratcheted up the pressure. Israel said they were mistakenly killed.
Earlier this week, Alicia Kearns, the Conservative chairperson of parliament’s foreign affairs select committee, said ministers had been told by their lawyers that Israel had violated international law in its war in Gaza.
The government has in the past blocked sales to Israel, such as in 2009 when it revoked licences and in 1982 when there was a restriction on weapon sales after Lebanon’s invasion.
Israel signalled yesterday that its military’s investigation of the air strike that killed the seven aid workers in the Gaza Strip could take weeks.