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| World Central Kitchen (WCK) barge loaded with food arrives off the Gaza coast before the aid workers were killed |
Israel’s foreign ministry has defended the country’s decision to close the investigation into the killing of seven aid workers who were transporting humanitarian goods sent from Cyprus to Gaza in 2024, stressing that the country is “deeply committed to international law”.
Three simultaneous airstrikes were carried out by the Israel Defence Forces on a convoy carrying humanitarian aid sent from Cyprus through the island’s Amalthea humanitarian aid corridor to Gaza overland from Israel’s Mediterranean coast to the Gaza strip on the night of April 1, 2024.
Israel’s foreign ministry stressed that following the airstrikes, the country had “immediately opened an examination of the incident … and had identified operational failures and took significant command and disciplinary measures”.
“The decision not to pursue [a] criminal investigation was made by Israel’s independent military prosecution authorities on the basis of strict professional and legal considerations. It is based on the legal threshold required for initiating [a] criminal investigation,” it said.
This threshold, it added, “is when there is reasonable suspicion [of] criminal misconduct”. The Israeli military had therefore concluded that no criminal misconduct had been committed in relation to the airstrikes carried out on the aid convoy in April 2024.
“Israel, which is deeply committed to international law, subjects its military operations to rigorous legal scrutiny, including standards that exceed those applied by many western armed forces in recent conflicts,” it said.
It added that it is “committed to the safety of humanitarian personnel, compliance with international humanitarian law, and preventing such tragedies from recurring”.
Additionally, it said that it “extends is condolences to the families of the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers … who tragically lost their lives under deeply regrettable circumstances”.
A destroyed vehicle where employees from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli airstrikeThe comment comes after Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom had on Friday issued a joint statement condemning Israel for closing the investigation, describing the decision as “shameful”.
“The announcement by the IDF on August 19 … that it would not pursue criminal investigations into this strike, without further explanation, is shameful. Announcing this decision on World Humanitarian Day, while the world honoured the courage and sacrifice of humanitarians, was particularly egregious,” they said.
They then described the decision as “too little and too late”, before adding that “the victims of this incident and their families deserve justice and accountability”, and saying that “we will continue to seek answers on their behalf”.
“The World Central Kitchen attack is one of countless incidents in Gaza where there has been no accountability. In Gaza, humanitarian workers continue to work tirelessly to support civilians in desperate need, risking their lives whilst working in the most perilous conditions,” they said.
They added that Israel “must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law, and must do more to ensure that humanitarian staff can carry out their work safely”, and that “lessons must be learnt from this tragedy”.
Earlier, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong had said that her country was “outraged” by the decision, and added that the Israeli authorities’ decision not to pursue criminal proceedings “falls far short of the accountability we expect”.
At the time of the attack, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides described the matter as a “sad day”, while European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who was visiting the island to inspect the Amalthea humanitarian aid corridor’s preparations, said that “humanitarian organisations must be protected.”
Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said on the same day that “questions will now need to be answered by the Israelis.”
People carry the body of one of the workers from the World Central Kitchen who was killed in an Israeli airstrike [Photo: Reuters]In light of the attack, of the 330 tonnes of humanitarian aid which had been sent from the port of Larnaca to Israel, 240 tonnes returned to the island unloaded, while American charity World Central Kitchen, which had been distributing the aid, temporarily suspended its operations.
The charity’s founder, Michelin-starred chef Jose Andres, said at the time that the IDF had targeted his aid workers “systematically, car by car”.
“This was not just a bad luck situation where ‘oops’ we dropped the bomb in the wrong place,” he added.
Meanwhile, non-governmental organisation Open Arms, which supplied the eponymous ship which carried the humanitarian aid shipment to Israel, was also furious at the incident.
Organisation representative Oscar Camps described Gaza as a “dystopian laboratory where people’s blood flows while war technologies are tested and perfected, directed by increasingly automated algorithms that allow all human responsibility to be diluted, using technology and trivialising evil”.
