IDF fires 2 senior officers; report finds strike on aid workers was 'serious violation of commands'

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Israel's military has fired two senior officers after concluding Monday's attack that killed seven food aid workers in Gaza was in "serious violation" of its commands.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Friday that "those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives," calling the attack "a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification."

It said the strike was carried out in "serious violation of the commands and IDF Standard Operating Procedures," and dismissed a major and a colonel in reserve. Three other IDF officials were formally reprimanded; the commanders of the brigade and division involved, and the commander of the Southern Command, who bore "overall responsibility."

Seven aid workers - three Britons, a Palestinian, a US-Canadian dual citizen, an Australian and a Pole - were killed in Monday's strikes on cars operated by the World Central Kitchen (WCK), setting off fury in those countries.

The IDF detailed in its preliminary findings a series of botched assessments and decision-making failures that led to the targeted strikes on three cars carrying innocent aid workers.

Its forces "identified a gunman on one of the aid trucks, following which they identified an additional gunman," the IDF said, as the trucks transported food to a warehouse in Gaza. It did not provide any more details about that claim.

Later, as three WCK vehicles left the warehouse, a commander "mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles and that these were Hamas terrorists," the report said.

The IDF officers involved "misidentified something slung over one of the passenger's shoulders as a weapon," but forces now believe it was a bag, an IDF spokesperson told CNN Friday.

The spokesperson also said that Israel's surveillance drones "could not see the WCK logo on the vehicles at night."

Some of the WCK workers in the first car survived the initial strike and fled to the next car in the convoy, the spokesperson added, only for that vehicle to also be targeted. The report said there were three strikes on the convoy.

WCK and the heads of many Western nations have called for an independent, third party investigation into the strikes, but Israel has committed only to the internal inquiry released Friday.

Though it included a rare admission of guilt from the Israeli military, the IDF's Friday statement was brief and lacked a detailed explanation of precisely how and why its commands were violated.

It is unlikely to be the final word on a fatal attack that has hardened the ire of Western countries towards Israel's conduct in Gaza, and accelerated debates in several nations about whether military aid to Israel should be halted.

"The IDF cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza," WCK said Friday in response to the preliminary findings. "Without systemic change, there will be more military failures, more apologies and more grieving families.

The charity said it is "clear from their preliminary investigation that the IDF has deployed deadly force without regard to its own protocols, chain of command and rules of engagement."

"Their apologies for the outrageous killing of our colleagues represent cold comfort," WCK CEO Erin Gore said. "It's cold comfort for the victims' families and WCK's global family."

US President Joe Biden called the deaths of aid workers and the overall humanitarian situation in Gaza "unacceptable" in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, adding that US support would depend on "measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers."

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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