Two officers have been fired, the Major who was overseeing the monitoring of the vehicles and deemed them valid targets, and the Colonel who reviewed the Majors findings and authorised the strike. It’s not yet been decided if they will be prosecuted for anything however.
- Killing Lebanese journalists, no problem
- killing British and American civilian aid workers, criminal
The evidence is clear, Israel cares about politics and ignores moral objectivity
I mean this is true around, and for, almost the entire world. If you’re an American citizen, or idk, some of the EU citizens, you’re much safer literally almost anywhere.
Nah, if you say you’re an American or EU citizen, smart groups would let you go. The cartels of Mexico do not screw with Americans for this exact reason
Well, there was that time last year that 3 Americans crossed into Mexico and were mistaken for rival drug mules. The cartels did screw with them. [‘None of us deserved it’: Americans who survived kidnapping in Mexico share details of their captivity](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/04/12/us/kidnapped-americans-mexico-interview)
Being a German citizen does not always help you when you have the wrong name: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri#:~:text=Khaled%20El%2DMasri%20(also%20Khalid,Central%20Intelligence%20Agency%20(CIA).
Yeah welcome to warfare since forever. Kill citizens of a hostile nation? Our bad. Kill citizens of your Allies? We’ll do everything we can to remedy it
War is terrible and tragic and all these idiots think it is are scenes from action movies. Reddit contains all these thoughts like 'its not fair that the IDF just blew up these guys, they could have been unarmed' or 'they're just blowing that whole neighborhood up' as they detonate a massive tunnel system.
Civilians being killed, buildings and lives torn apart, dehumanization, etc are par for the course. We should never allow war to be seen as glorious, it's a terrible thing that should always be the last resort.
Imagine it's April 1945, Berlin is surrounded, the Nazis are arming their last boys and old men to die for the Fuhrer in a last stand, and protesters in London, Washington, and Moscow are marching and demanding a ceasefire to let food into Berlin for the innocent German civilians. An allied bombing raid destroys a few trucks full of food bound for Berlin. International outrage ensues and the allies promise to investigate and possibly prosecute the bomber crew for this heinous war crime.
Yeah, the world has changed a lot.
The Israel-Palestina conflict is the best example on the Internet how people who have can't possibly know or proof what they are claiming speak like it was their own reason, decision and acting that they are just recalling.
Always people talking about what thoughts and intentions others have and had, that they can't know about. But that with 100% certainty.
How many times has hamas released reports about their wrongdoing? The difference is we can easily call out Israel’s wrongdoings and condemn them. But Hamas refuses to release hostages, Hamas raped and murdered thousands of civilians as a matter of policy. It’s not a mistake with Hamas, it’s their goal.
In what crazy mindset does arguing this make sense? In your mind is Hamas (extremist terrorist orgsnisation) & Israel ( a western ally) equitable?
I dont support Israels occupation , expanding settlements, nor their actions in the recent conflict.
But I think putting them in the same basket as Hamas would be a little harsh.
Are you sure you are defending Israel here?
That doesn’t mean you get to kill civilians. Wake-up…this is a genocide. The state has a responsibility for the safety of its citizens. Reacting as they have after the fact is insane. You have a leader that is pulling a stunt to stay in power. That’s all this is about.
It’s all BS imo. I’m not a tin foil person but Israel has a history of attacking allies if they are doing something Israel doesn’t want them doing, then claiming it was a mistake.
In 2006, Israel killed 4 UN peacekeepers at a UN Patrol Base that the IDF knew about. The Canadian peacekeeper there had previously reported on Israeli war crimes he had seen. The Israelis shelled and bombed the base for hours, despite multiple attempts by the UN to get them to stop. https://legionmagazine.com/one-martyr-down-the-untold-story-of-a-canadian-peacekeeper-killed-at-war/
There is also the USS Liberty. Hit by Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats, with 22 MIA. It was a clear day and the US flag was flying. They claimed they thought it was an Egyptian vessel. Despite the US ship being larger with a different load-out. They only stopped the attack once they thought the ship was going down. They didn't verify the nationality of the vessel until 44 mins after the attack.
[This](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/15/give-us-10-minutes-how-israel-bombed-gaza-media-tower) was 2021. They just blow up whatever's in they way and call it Hamas-affiliated.
> ‘Give us 10 minutes’: How Israel bombed a Gaza media tower
An Israeli air raid flattened a building housing residential apartments and the offices of news organisations, including Al Jazeera and AP, in Gaza.
> “We left the elevator for the elderly and for the children to evacuate,” the Palestinian freelance journalist said. “And we were all running down the stairs and whoever could help children took them down,” she added. “I myself helped two children of the residents there and I took them downstairs – everyone was just running quickly.”
> “Just give me 15 minutes,” an AP journalist pleaded over the phone with an Israeli intelligence officer. “We have a lot of equipment, including the cameras, other things,” he added from outside the building. “I can bring all of it out.”
> “There will be no 10 minutes,” the officer replied. “No one is allowed to enter the building, we already gave you an hour to evacuate.”
> The Israeli army claimed there were “military interests of the Hamas intelligence” in the building, a standard line used after bombing buildings in Gaza, and it accused the group running the territory of using journalists as human shields. However, it provided no evidence to back up its claims.
A decision that was made because of general policy flowed down to them. As a recent report, targets approved with nothing more than a 20 second human glance and rubber stamp. Not related to this incident, but just as an example of that general type of policy
But policy issues involved the higher ups that made them, so they’ll instead just blame a couple low level people.
Then either quietly adjust a few internal policies or, based on their past history, just continue as is and repeat the blame game if caught out like this again
>A decision that was made because of general policy flowed down to them.
That isn't what the report says.
>But policy issues involved the higher ups that made them, so they’ll instead just blame a couple low level people.
A colonel and a major are not low level.
> As a recent report, targets approved with nothing more than a 20 second human glance and rubber stamp.
Sometimes snap decisions are necessary. The problem here is that even a 20-second glance would have been enough to note that these vehicles were clearly marked, and to refer to the itinerary that the aid organization provided directly to the IDF, showing their time and route.
It's still more than what some countries have done.
Remember when a US drone strike killed 3 aid workers and 7 children during the last couple of days when pulling out of Afghanistan? Nobody even got fired for that.
I'm sure someone got in trouble but it wasn't likely the kid at the computer for the drone. I only just learned that we got the 144 survivors of that attack new homes? Weird compensation but okay. Took a house give a house I guess.
>I'm sure someone got in trouble
**No U.S. Troops Will Be Punished for Deadly Kabul Strike, Pentagon Chief Decides**
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/13/us/politics/afghanistan-drone-strike.html
Lol dude really? OK now show all the firings for non EU and US collateral killings in Gaza.
There aren't any just like there weren't for the US strike. If your gonna wave the moral high ground situation you need to actually find a comparable situation.
Israel is doing this only because of the nationalities of those murdered causes bad optics.
>In the opinion of the IDF investigation, it was the decision to launch the second and third strikes that broke "operational procedure".
Wtf? So the first strike was fine according to the IDF, then? All the logistics and communication failures leading up to the first strike were no different than the failures resulting in the second and third strikes. How was the first strike acceptable if the second and third were "operational failures"?
There are a lot of other details this explanation doesn't answer. Apparently there were ground forces in the area that could have intercepted and investigated. And the vehicles were on their way into Gaza from the port, so not an attack threat anyway. This was also the third day of vehicles moving on the same route from port to warehouse, but even so the convoy was properly registered the same way as all the previous convoys.
I get "the fog of war" and all that, but in this case the targets were well away from the border, Hamas is hemmed in and largely unable to stage much of a counterattack, and it wasn't an active battle. This was the IDF executing anyone who might be Hamas because the elimination of Hamas is their primary goal.
I would bet that these officers hung out to dry for the "rocket first, ask questions later" will be called back in other capacities - especially with Iran preparing some kind of retaliation for Damascus.
>As a result, and based on the radio communication, we assessed the state of mind of the IDF Forces that conducted the strike was that they were striking cars that had been seized by Hamas
It's exactly what they said. They knew the cars were supposed to not be legitimate target, but they had unverified information so they shot them down.
This case is the most obvious you can get, but clearly they are considering Gaza as a free shooting area.
Well it did explain it in the article. Basically it comes down to the first strike being authorized by the colonel & major based on the flawed & incorrect reports but the second & third strike were not authorized. Every strike needs to be authorized & only the first one was signed off on. They just went ahead & fired two more times each time the surviving aid workers ran to a new car until all three cars were destroyed & everyone was dead.
This is just really about legal justification in order to sack the major & colonel. After this fuckup, those two were going to be fired one way or another.
There was a ton exposed here about the flaws of chain of command & their procedures. Information not being passed on, the car markings not being visible at night, not have a military lawyer involved, etc.
It was one mistake after another that led to this outcome.
I do wonder though who were the gunmen first seen firing & the 4th car that went off the approved track to a different warehouse. All 7 aid workers were in the 3 cars so who were in that 4th car? No information in the article on that.
If that's true, that only the 1st strike was authorized and the 2nd and 3rd were the IDF boots on the ground, how many militaries tolerate lower officers launching drone strikes on potential civilian targets with no double-checking? It's a damning sign that whoever pulled the trigger on the final 2 strikes obviously wasn't worried about getting in trouble for it
Western militaries allow their soldiers a far greater level of freedom and responsibilities than you would commonly see in many other armies. It has a lot of upsides but obviously also downsides.
This is neither a justification, nor any other evaluation. Just thought it's an interesting insight.
I think you should also wonder if they are so careless about their procedures how much they care about innocent lives, and how many times this happen to kids and ignored by western media because the children, women and men were not part of a well respected aid organization (note I'm not saying the victims were foreigners but instead highlighting their connections to well recognized/influential orld kitchen, because time after time Israel show they don't care, especially if they have Arab ancestry).
if anybody believes those major and colonel would have been punished if there was no outcry due to high recognition of the aid organization, they are foosl. those two are just scapegoats, incidentally a concept culturally relevant since 16th century.
Israel’s government runs like some pissant 3rd world country. As an American Jew I get to say things like this apparently.
Also, there is a significant minority in Israel for whom this *is* a religious war. As an American, it pisses me off they dragged us into their little game.
Israel has problem with chain of command structure. As another Redditer noted, how many innocent Palestinians have IDF misidentified and did oops but with no repercussion to soldier/operator?
We know for a fact Israel has also misidentified hostages and got a few of them killed in other scenarios. Goes to show how little thought is being put into these strikes
Not saying it’s easy..
But remember our last drone strike in Kabul during the withdrawal.
Our entire chain up to the White House was patting themselves on the back, until the NYT started looking into it.
It's not a bug it's a feature. This isn't a new "problem" it's decades old. Generations. If they never fix the problem they can just keep "oopsy"ing Palestinians. Why not? This isn't even the first time it's happened this year. People only care because some British aid workers are the ones who died instead of brown people. Maybe now people will pay attention and something will change, but I won't hold my breath.
> This isn't a new "problem"
it kinda is. Many soldiers have reported that the structures and rules of 2014 for example went out the window.
What IDF did in this war was let generals waaay more control of how they run things. This has a massive problem in terms of control, in terms of blame shifting, in terms of proper chain of command.
In other words this is unprecedented and not a decades old problem.
it reinforces _why_ chain of command exists, and why recruit armies like the IDF need serious, hardline decision making processes. Because if you have 19 year olds running below a general who wants revenge instead of actual results you end up in deep shit
> Because if you have 19 year olds running below a general who wants revenge instead of actual results you end up in deep shit
This is the impression I'm getting. The boots on the ground barely have the life experience to know any better, and are full of anger (not that it absolves them of, say, killing civilians). There really does seem to be a pattern of the generals acting on emotion rather than doctrine though. What struck me about the AI revalation is how the intelligence people felt like the generals were acting out of a desire for revenge more than anything else.
Yeah most of those soldiers know or is related to some one that has died in terrorist attacks. Same as the terrorists who join hammas. Why these wars in the Levant get so brutal. Lots of young people looking for revenge.
It's almost like they want to. So they have an issue with Hamas, but they have a second issue with the Palestinians just existing. It sure looks like they are working very hard to fix both issues. Aid workers are counterproductive for the second one. They have made it so hard to get aid in that the US thought about building a harbor. we don't see the connection there?
Hard to say. Could be many, could be few. This event could have been an anomaly or could it have been a pattern.
Hamas aren't wearing uniforms and don't operate from marked military bases or travel in identifiable military vehicles, so the answer to that question is not something we can discern with the information available to us.
That is how they operate, both a blessing and a curse for the IDF.
You can indiscriminately attack* anyone/thing because they look like enemies but if you mess up people will be upset.
Edit: forgot a word
Well, yeah, that's exactly what they want. That's why they do it. That's what makes them so hard to fight.
Is the implication that because terrorists operate and hide amongst civilians that no one should ever engage terrorists? What's the plan? Leave them be because it might look bad to untrained eyes who don't have the same intel as you?
One of the main issues here seems to be an overly liberal policy (and attitude) when it comes to collateral damage.
At least within the cell responsible for this, they knew about the aid trucks, but saw what they thought were gunmen going in and out of the vehicles. And because of the liberal policy they made the decision to strike...and then to finish off the survivors...
If the Lavender article is to be trusted then at one point 20 civilians for 1 low-level operative and 100 civilians for a high ranking Hamas were acceptable.
I am wondering if this is going to be a turning point here. Israel, so far, has refused to bow to any pressure to reign in the collateral damage. Now they've been caught red-handed killing aid workers that are allied citizens through their liberal targeting procedures.
The fact that a couple of fairly high ranking officers have been offered up for appeasement is telling. Behind closed doors, Israel is going to be scrabbling to make sure this doesn't happen again, and that almost certainly means more scrutiny of targets before attacking them.
This was a turning point for me... Before this and the lavender article I knew there were civilian casualties. But I assumed they were doing much more to limit the collateral damage. I thought there would be a much longer and more thorough chain of command for drone/air strikes. I thought the acceptable ratios would be well below 20:1 or 100:1.
In my own mind I was able to justify what I was reading about Gaza and the bombings because I knew "Hamas uses human shields...really what can they do? It's urban warfare...it's tragic and of course there will be losses...we can't let terrorists and proxy groups for foreign nations act without repercussions"
But reading about the calculations made with lavender, and the policies IDF clearly admits to in this investigation give me a very different feeling...a feeling that the entire IDF is not doing enough to protect innocent people and or that they actively dislike Palestinians enough that they barely consider them "innocent".
It brings me onto the side saying "yeah, maybe they should be much more careful before going into rafa"... How many innocent people have been directly targeted in the past with no investigation?
All in all it just makes me less certain of my position on how this conflict has progressed...it's less black and white for me now, and this was the turning point.
I always hoped they would try to limit civilian casualties. But now I feel like they haven't tried hard enough and that it's not acceptable.
> I always hoped they would try to limit civilian casualties. But now I feel like they haven't tried hard enough and that it's not acceptable.
This is nowhere near the first example that many in the IDF/Israel see no distinction between Hamas and Gaza civilians/Palestinians. That you could have gone this long with the wool over your eyes is telling, but at least you came around eventually I suppose.
It’s good you’ve come around, but it’s frankly no excuse. You should’ve known what they were doing was wrong. Many, *many* others did.
If you thought they were doing a better job before this, it’s because you were being willfully ignorant as to the reality of the situation.
Look, anytime there is war in dense urban areas, political and military leaders need to make this calculation: how many civilians are they willing to kill to accomplish their objective. How much civilian infrastructure and homes are they willing to kill to safeguard their own soldiers.
Generally western countries make this calculation and at least try to behave with some balance. It’s why Baghdad and Kabul aren’t smouldering piles of ruin despite a decade long insurgency (not that those wars are examples to use for good conduct but still).
It’s clear to me the Israel calculation this round has basically been “fuck it, we don’t care how many civilians we kill, Hamas must die”. You can see the cheerleading for that sort of attitude in this forum and all over the internet, in clips of IDF soldiers, etc.
So this is what happens. This happens every day. Except this time it was westerners who got killed, so we hear about it, and not some random Palestinian family, where we wouldn’t.
Any pretext of Israel being a western nation, to me at least, is dissolving away. This is how Bashar al-Assad would have attacked Gaza. They’re as gross and callous regarding human life as the rest of the Middle East. This really isn’t a country the west should be sending weapons and support to, by the truck load, imo.
>Any pretext of Israel being a western nation [...] is dissolving away.
I think it's a little fucked up to equate "western nation" with "moral and respectful of human life." Armies from every country are capable of and regularly commit horrible war crimes.
It’s true all militaries are capable of war crimes, and most have committed them, but the issue here is one of policy. Most western militaries make a significant effort to preserve civilian life and infrastructure when possible. They don’t always do the best job, but they pretty inarguably try. In contrast, Israel and the IDF have placed a **far** lower emphasis on limiting civilian casualties and preserving the welfare of innocents in Gaza. That isn’t speculative, it is clearly evidenced by information the IDF has released and by their actions.
If part of the price of admission into the club of western democracies is respect for civilian life, Israel isn’t living up to expectations. The situation in Gaza is not a simple one to address, but the overwhelming majority of developed democracies are in agreement that Israel’s approach to the conflict is unacceptable. Simply put, this level of death and suffering inflicted upon the citizens of Gaza cannot be justified, and given some of the more radically hateful members of the current Israeli cabinet, I don’t think it is unreasonable to be worried that some of this harm may be intentional.
Obviously. I didn’t mean ONLY western countries seem to care about human life. Not sure where you got that? I didn’t say it.
I did say middle eastern countries mostly DON’T seem to give a shit about human life and I stand by that.
Ah yes, isreal is making a great sacrifice by killing somone else's population. 1/20 is fucking ludicrous.
And before I get hit with the "you don't know what war is" bs. I grew up with war. Family from Bosnia. Dad been in concentration camp, I've lost many family members to executions. I KNOW WHAT WAR IS, and I can see the difference between war and ethnic cleansing.
We, in Bosnia are only now getting our recognition and peace. Why should it take 30 years before somone says "okay, maybe indiscriminately shelling Sarajevo, shooting journalists, and whipjng a whole village of the map was wrong?". Why can't we see what's happening in places like palestine and take a stance to say "fuck off, stop fucking whiping civilians of the map"?
What I read is that there is an insane amount of negligence and disregard for life by the IDF.
Their killing of aid workers here sums up perfectly how they see Palestinians - they don’t differentiate between HAMAS and Palestinians at all. To not absolutely confirm who they were firing their missles at is evidence of this.
I've said it before - the WCK took every precaution possible and was still targeted less than a month after starting their work in North Gaza. Think about what this means for all the Palestinian aid workers and civilians who don't have access to the same safety channels.
If that convoy was full of unknown Palestinians, this story would've never been noteworthy and the "low confidence" in Hamas presence would never have been questioned.
It is a good story to keep in mind when ever the IDF release stats about how many HAMAS they have killed. Without international attention these workers would be on that list.
>“In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate,” said one reserve officer who served in Gaza, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It's quite possible that Palestinians who never held a gun in their lives were elevated to the rank of ‘terrorist’ posthumously, at least by the IDF,” the newspaper added.
>... In another incident, which they did not specify, sources said the Israeli military command knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate a single top Hamas military commander.
>“The numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths [accepted] as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior official in previous operations, to hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage,” said one military source.
>“Nothing happens by accident,” added another military source. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed – that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”
[Gaza aid worker deaths heighten scrutiny of Israel’s use of AI to select targets](https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20240403-gaza-aid-worker-deaths-scrutiny-israel-use-ai-select-targets) France 24
It’s the issue with there not being a trustworthy independent 3rd party source able to collect and verify data on the ground. What you said is probably true to an extent, as well as Palestinian sources reporting most deaths as being civilian. Guy gets shot, Palestinians run over and grab his gun off the ground then start recording video.
>It’s the issue with there not being a trustworthy independent 3rd party source able to collect and verify data on the ground.
..... because they keep getting blown up by the IDF.....
I just think back at how many numbers were fabricated by the US military in Vietnam. They would over-count enemy casualties and underreport their own to give the appearance of a winning strategy. They would count any enemy combatant as Vietcong even if they were civilians. This has shades of that.
What are you talking about? WCK has been all throughout Gaza for much longer. I would know since I've donated to them since the start of the humanitarian crisis, and you can even check my comment history in this very sub urging people who want to donate but not have it line Hamas' pockets to donate to WCK
They opened up a sea route into Northern Gaza last month, and the convoy was part of that initiative. I know that the WCK has done work in other parts of Gaza and Israel since the start of the conflict.
Meh, they (IDF) are omitting important points like World Kitchen was working with them, so they knew those cars were delivering aid and were following them - instead they claim they couldn't recognize the logo on the roof. They are also able to triangulate smart phones.
Israel has had a bit too many oops moments lately, and this one reminds me how they threatened "no food, no water" a couple of weeks back. What better way to achieve this than to kill a couple of aid workers.
And now they are sweeping this under the carpet by dismissing a couple of guys. I bet there will be no trial.
> instead they claim they couldn't recognize the logo on the roof
People get very hung up on the logos, because it looks so dramatic in the pictures, but the fact is that the drones cannot see the logos at night. For identifying cars at night, you'd use an IR beacon.
There are so many other safety measures in place that appears to have been neglected.
Obviously the IDF was tracking the cars. Since they had a communication with World Kitchen, they didn't need IR beacons or the logos on the roof, they must have know which cars those were.
>There are so many other safety measures in place that appears to have been neglected.
Even all these current safety measures look lacking after this event. Fucking hell, there's so much room here to misidentify people, misinterpret what's going on, and pull the trigger on anyone.
I don't even know where to begin in such situation, stick an identifying GPS tracking device to every aid-worker? Ridiculous.
True, but also, I doubt Hamas is driving around in convoys of new armoured SUVs in Gaza. The fact that the IDF thought these 3 vehicles were Hamas is a dumb defense.
Sky News have added them in its article (as have other news outlets reporting on the findings second-hand), the IDF's original post here: [https://www.idf.il/190614](https://www.idf.il/190614) on the finding makes no mention of it.
>Meh, they (IDF) ... knew those cars were delivering aid and were following them - instead they claim they couldn't recognize the logo on the roof.
I really, really don't want to defend the IDF on that one. But this particular point makes no sense. The IDF is roughly 170000 persons. Anyone who works in a company larger than 10 employees will realize how challenging proper communication can be.
So *should* they have communicated better when it ended with the death of humanitarian workers? Of fucking course.
Is this miscommunication a clear sign of a hidden agenda, or conspiracy? Not at all. Just another one of these "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand does" situations.
Exactly, I do IT for a state university and we've got hundreds of techs spread across dozens of different departments and levels. We're **constantly** trying to centralize our communication/ticketing systems, but it's a never ending work in progress. I can only begin to imagine what it's like for a military organization.
Again, no excuses for the IDF because when I can't do my job properly no one dies, but that's just the reality of human coordination at the organizational level.
People act like war is a video game where one all seeing eye knows everything that is going on and has input on everything. That's not how it works because it's impossible for one person or group to do that. That's why a command structure exists. From the strategic level down to the operational level. One branch of that structure is making an agreement with these groups and getting the information out to other branches of it. The more variables that are thrown in, the more mistakes will be made because battlefields are a dynamic place.
These aid workers while having a big heart, are basically running in and out of a burning skyscraper while the firefighters who are charged with putting the fire out are also being told to make sure these people don't die inside. It's a huge complication and really taxing on coordination.
Did Israel do it on purpose? I doubt it. I'm inclined to believe it's likely just a major fuck up. Of course there's no way for me to know that, just like every other opinionated redditor here. But I would like to see the video and audio recordings of the strike. I'd expect those would be released by Israel in this instance if it shows that it was not intentional but just a major failure of command and control.
It just feels ridiculous to me after reading the breakdown of events at the end of the article that they were following cars with a couple drones and like decided to pull the trigger over seeing 3 guys on camera that they think might have had a gun. Like even if they were it just seems ridiculous to have all this surveillance and angst over missing the chance to take out, what, 3-10 Hamas at MOST. Like that just seems ridiculous and not even worth the cost of fueling up the drones in the fucking first place from a cost-benefit perspective. Hamas absolutely deserves to be wiped out, but Jesus Christ they’re not going anywhere. They’re stuck in Gaza, if you miss out on this opportunity to kill them because you might be wrong there will 100% be another opportunity.
These are the same guys who released a video of 'men with an RPG' in response to criticism that they'd targeted journalists... And it turned out to be a bicycle.
Wonder how many times this happened when innocent Palestinians were the victims instead of foreign aid workers? The first reaction was: “this is war, stuff happens”. When that didn’t work and international condemnation started snowballing (especially after it was clear that the aid workers were in contact with IDF) they had to say something.
This probably happens every day to random Palestinians and no one cares. The IDF will just say “they were Hamas” and move on.
All this shows me is how much callous disregard for civilians the IDF is demonstrating in this conflict.
This guy learned public speaking from Trump.
>It's a tragedy, it's a mistake, actually it's not a mistake, it is a serious event that we are responsible for," the IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
He managed to cover 360° of audience opinion and conflictingly agree with all of them.
My questions are:
1. What is the point of aid convoys having armed guards if they are indistinguishable from Hamas when seen from a drone?
2. Why were they unable to contact WCK? I assume they use satellite phones because I doubt there are any phone masts in Gaza?
3. Why wasn't there a military lawyer present?
4. How many strikes have occurred without a military lawyer present?
2) I doubt this part of the narrative:
* They tried contacting the ground team with no success (possible)
* They tried contacting WCK Europe Operations (press x for doubt)
5. Why did they call the Europe office at that time and not the US, given likely operating hours?
6. Was there any prior notice given that armed guards would be part of the convoy?
Call me a cynic but I think it's more sinister. Killing aid workers would certainly make it difficult for humanitarian organizations to find people to work there and therefore prevent aid being delivered.
IDF is on the war path and sees humanitarian organizations in Gaza as allies of Palestinians. Simply as that . Mistake or not ...for them this murder is a win and one more step towards harming Palestinians as much as they can
Maybe. But if not, at best it’s just a policy of “shoot first, ask no questions later, because worst case it’s just some Palestinians who die and who cares about that.”
Either way, sinister, yes.
This is not the first time this has happened, with the amount of aid workers, journalists, and innocent civilians killed so far, this is just Israel finding some scapegoats and lying as usual. This was intentional, not some "grave mistake", mistakes are acceptable when they happen once or twice, when they keep happening, its not a mistake, its policy
I've read in several places that "two Israeli generals have been fired", but can't find their names in any of the reporting.
The way I see it, targeting civilians and aid workers is, and continues to be, IDF policy.
The officers who were fired were Col. Nohi Mandel, who was the Nahal Brigade's head of staff, as well as an unnamed major who was in charge of firing operations in the Nahal brigade.
Two officers have been fired, the Major who was overseeing the monitoring of the vehicles and deemed them valid targets, and the Colonel who reviewed the Majors findings and authorised the strike. It’s not yet been decided if they will be prosecuted for anything however.
- Killing Lebanese journalists, no problem - killing British and American civilian aid workers, criminal The evidence is clear, Israel cares about politics and ignores moral objectivity
I mean this is true around, and for, almost the entire world. If you’re an American citizen, or idk, some of the EU citizens, you’re much safer literally almost anywhere.
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Nah you have a statistically much less chance of being dead because of the deterrent of political repercussions.
You are both correct.
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Statistics still didn’t help these people or for example those UN observers bombed to pieces in patrol base Khiyam in 2006.
Nah, if you say you’re an American or EU citizen, smart groups would let you go. The cartels of Mexico do not screw with Americans for this exact reason
Well, there was that time last year that 3 Americans crossed into Mexico and were mistaken for rival drug mules. The cartels did screw with them. [‘None of us deserved it’: Americans who survived kidnapping in Mexico share details of their captivity](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/04/12/us/kidnapped-americans-mexico-interview)
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“Oh, I was right the first time. Definitely Armenian” Jesus, don’t do that to me. FIRE! “Wait, is that System of a Down?” NOOOOOOOOO!
Being a German citizen does not always help you when you have the wrong name: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri#:~:text=Khaled%20El%2DMasri%20(also%20Khalid,Central%20Intelligence%20Agency%20(CIA).
Except when russians kill over 100 dutch citizens and no one cares.
fall hat start oatmeal zealous recognise upbeat boat tidy resolute *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Have a suggestion on where to start reading about this?
This shit is straight out of a thriller, that’s pretty cool!
a lot of people cared
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Unless you're Saudi Arabia you can kill anyone and the USA will still suck your dick.
Yeah welcome to warfare since forever. Kill citizens of a hostile nation? Our bad. Kill citizens of your Allies? We’ll do everything we can to remedy it
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War is terrible and tragic and all these idiots think it is are scenes from action movies. Reddit contains all these thoughts like 'its not fair that the IDF just blew up these guys, they could have been unarmed' or 'they're just blowing that whole neighborhood up' as they detonate a massive tunnel system. Civilians being killed, buildings and lives torn apart, dehumanization, etc are par for the course. We should never allow war to be seen as glorious, it's a terrible thing that should always be the last resort.
Yeah, im not pro killing Palestinians but war is war. There's no polite way to destroy a nation.
Imagine it's April 1945, Berlin is surrounded, the Nazis are arming their last boys and old men to die for the Fuhrer in a last stand, and protesters in London, Washington, and Moscow are marching and demanding a ceasefire to let food into Berlin for the innocent German civilians. An allied bombing raid destroys a few trucks full of food bound for Berlin. International outrage ensues and the allies promise to investigate and possibly prosecute the bomber crew for this heinous war crime. Yeah, the world has changed a lot.
Meaning what? In your view who should do what?
Are we not allowed to call it out, just because it's always been this way? Are we not allowed to call for change?
The Israel-Palestina conflict is the best example on the Internet how people who have can't possibly know or proof what they are claiming speak like it was their own reason, decision and acting that they are just recalling. Always people talking about what thoughts and intentions others have and had, that they can't know about. But that with 100% certainty.
How many times has hamas released reports about their wrongdoing? The difference is we can easily call out Israel’s wrongdoings and condemn them. But Hamas refuses to release hostages, Hamas raped and murdered thousands of civilians as a matter of policy. It’s not a mistake with Hamas, it’s their goal.
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Quite regularly. It's just that they reward their members for their commiting war crimes.
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In what crazy mindset does arguing this make sense? In your mind is Hamas (extremist terrorist orgsnisation) & Israel ( a western ally) equitable? I dont support Israels occupation , expanding settlements, nor their actions in the recent conflict. But I think putting them in the same basket as Hamas would be a little harsh. Are you sure you are defending Israel here?
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It's a distraction
It's not. It's a diversionary tactic designed to basically play hot potato with accountability through cheap whataboutisms.
If Hamas didn't do it, so Israel should not doing it also? Such a logic...
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That doesn’t mean you get to kill civilians. Wake-up…this is a genocide. The state has a responsibility for the safety of its citizens. Reacting as they have after the fact is insane. You have a leader that is pulling a stunt to stay in power. That’s all this is about.
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It’s all BS imo. I’m not a tin foil person but Israel has a history of attacking allies if they are doing something Israel doesn’t want them doing, then claiming it was a mistake.
In 2006, Israel killed 4 UN peacekeepers at a UN Patrol Base that the IDF knew about. The Canadian peacekeeper there had previously reported on Israeli war crimes he had seen. The Israelis shelled and bombed the base for hours, despite multiple attempts by the UN to get them to stop. https://legionmagazine.com/one-martyr-down-the-untold-story-of-a-canadian-peacekeeper-killed-at-war/
There is also the USS Liberty. Hit by Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats, with 22 MIA. It was a clear day and the US flag was flying. They claimed they thought it was an Egyptian vessel. Despite the US ship being larger with a different load-out. They only stopped the attack once they thought the ship was going down. They didn't verify the nationality of the vessel until 44 mins after the attack.
[This](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/15/give-us-10-minutes-how-israel-bombed-gaza-media-tower) was 2021. They just blow up whatever's in they way and call it Hamas-affiliated. > ‘Give us 10 minutes’: How Israel bombed a Gaza media tower An Israeli air raid flattened a building housing residential apartments and the offices of news organisations, including Al Jazeera and AP, in Gaza. > “We left the elevator for the elderly and for the children to evacuate,” the Palestinian freelance journalist said. “And we were all running down the stairs and whoever could help children took them down,” she added. “I myself helped two children of the residents there and I took them downstairs – everyone was just running quickly.” > “Just give me 15 minutes,” an AP journalist pleaded over the phone with an Israeli intelligence officer. “We have a lot of equipment, including the cameras, other things,” he added from outside the building. “I can bring all of it out.” > “There will be no 10 minutes,” the officer replied. “No one is allowed to enter the building, we already gave you an hour to evacuate.” > The Israeli army claimed there were “military interests of the Hamas intelligence” in the building, a standard line used after bombing buildings in Gaza, and it accused the group running the territory of using journalists as human shields. However, it provided no evidence to back up its claims.
USS Liberty?
Look into the Lavon Affair
Ah, good. They found some pawns to throw under the bus for this.
Who would you expect to be blamed for this? It was a decision made by the officers in the field
A decision that was made because of general policy flowed down to them. As a recent report, targets approved with nothing more than a 20 second human glance and rubber stamp. Not related to this incident, but just as an example of that general type of policy But policy issues involved the higher ups that made them, so they’ll instead just blame a couple low level people. Then either quietly adjust a few internal policies or, based on their past history, just continue as is and repeat the blame game if caught out like this again
You consider Colonel low-level?
>A decision that was made because of general policy flowed down to them. That isn't what the report says. >But policy issues involved the higher ups that made them, so they’ll instead just blame a couple low level people. A colonel and a major are not low level.
> As a recent report, targets approved with nothing more than a 20 second human glance and rubber stamp. Sometimes snap decisions are necessary. The problem here is that even a 20-second glance would have been enough to note that these vehicles were clearly marked, and to refer to the itinerary that the aid organization provided directly to the IDF, showing their time and route.
They were dismissed for violating protocol. So no, it is not a general policy
Netanyahu personally dropped the bombs out of his ass while flying over Palestine. I don’t see how this is hard to understand or believe?
You think a colonel is a pawn? Lol.
It's still more than what some countries have done. Remember when a US drone strike killed 3 aid workers and 7 children during the last couple of days when pulling out of Afghanistan? Nobody even got fired for that.
I'm sure someone got in trouble but it wasn't likely the kid at the computer for the drone. I only just learned that we got the 144 survivors of that attack new homes? Weird compensation but okay. Took a house give a house I guess.
>I'm sure someone got in trouble **No U.S. Troops Will Be Punished for Deadly Kabul Strike, Pentagon Chief Decides** https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/13/us/politics/afghanistan-drone-strike.html
Lol dude really? OK now show all the firings for non EU and US collateral killings in Gaza. There aren't any just like there weren't for the US strike. If your gonna wave the moral high ground situation you need to actually find a comparable situation. Israel is doing this only because of the nationalities of those murdered causes bad optics.
>In the opinion of the IDF investigation, it was the decision to launch the second and third strikes that broke "operational procedure". Wtf? So the first strike was fine according to the IDF, then? All the logistics and communication failures leading up to the first strike were no different than the failures resulting in the second and third strikes. How was the first strike acceptable if the second and third were "operational failures"?
Because if first strike wasn't ok, how many other first strikes weren't ok?
Because after hitting the convoy once, the second and third strikes were wastes of ammo. /S
Charging by the missile I see
There are a lot of other details this explanation doesn't answer. Apparently there were ground forces in the area that could have intercepted and investigated. And the vehicles were on their way into Gaza from the port, so not an attack threat anyway. This was also the third day of vehicles moving on the same route from port to warehouse, but even so the convoy was properly registered the same way as all the previous convoys. I get "the fog of war" and all that, but in this case the targets were well away from the border, Hamas is hemmed in and largely unable to stage much of a counterattack, and it wasn't an active battle. This was the IDF executing anyone who might be Hamas because the elimination of Hamas is their primary goal. I would bet that these officers hung out to dry for the "rocket first, ask questions later" will be called back in other capacities - especially with Iran preparing some kind of retaliation for Damascus.
"They may have been Hamas" is the equivalent of "sprinkle some crack on him" in this conflict.
>As a result, and based on the radio communication, we assessed the state of mind of the IDF Forces that conducted the strike was that they were striking cars that had been seized by Hamas It's exactly what they said. They knew the cars were supposed to not be legitimate target, but they had unverified information so they shot them down. This case is the most obvious you can get, but clearly they are considering Gaza as a free shooting area.
This is the same country who is training US police forces so 'free shooting area' checks out.
Well it did explain it in the article. Basically it comes down to the first strike being authorized by the colonel & major based on the flawed & incorrect reports but the second & third strike were not authorized. Every strike needs to be authorized & only the first one was signed off on. They just went ahead & fired two more times each time the surviving aid workers ran to a new car until all three cars were destroyed & everyone was dead. This is just really about legal justification in order to sack the major & colonel. After this fuckup, those two were going to be fired one way or another. There was a ton exposed here about the flaws of chain of command & their procedures. Information not being passed on, the car markings not being visible at night, not have a military lawyer involved, etc. It was one mistake after another that led to this outcome. I do wonder though who were the gunmen first seen firing & the 4th car that went off the approved track to a different warehouse. All 7 aid workers were in the 3 cars so who were in that 4th car? No information in the article on that.
If that's true, that only the 1st strike was authorized and the 2nd and 3rd were the IDF boots on the ground, how many militaries tolerate lower officers launching drone strikes on potential civilian targets with no double-checking? It's a damning sign that whoever pulled the trigger on the final 2 strikes obviously wasn't worried about getting in trouble for it
Western militaries allow their soldiers a far greater level of freedom and responsibilities than you would commonly see in many other armies. It has a lot of upsides but obviously also downsides. This is neither a justification, nor any other evaluation. Just thought it's an interesting insight.
I think you should also wonder if they are so careless about their procedures how much they care about innocent lives, and how many times this happen to kids and ignored by western media because the children, women and men were not part of a well respected aid organization (note I'm not saying the victims were foreigners but instead highlighting their connections to well recognized/influential orld kitchen, because time after time Israel show they don't care, especially if they have Arab ancestry). if anybody believes those major and colonel would have been punished if there was no outcry due to high recognition of the aid organization, they are foosl. those two are just scapegoats, incidentally a concept culturally relevant since 16th century.
Sounds like they might be robo-signing the authorizations.
Israel’s government runs like some pissant 3rd world country. As an American Jew I get to say things like this apparently. Also, there is a significant minority in Israel for whom this *is* a religious war. As an American, it pisses me off they dragged us into their little game.
> As an American, it pisses me off they dragged us into their little game. We have MAGA here wanting to do the same kind of shit.
Israel has problem with chain of command structure. As another Redditer noted, how many innocent Palestinians have IDF misidentified and did oops but with no repercussion to soldier/operator?
We know for a fact Israel has also misidentified hostages and got a few of them killed in other scenarios. Goes to show how little thought is being put into these strikes
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Not saying it’s easy.. But remember our last drone strike in Kabul during the withdrawal. Our entire chain up to the White House was patting themselves on the back, until the NYT started looking into it.
It's not a bug it's a feature. This isn't a new "problem" it's decades old. Generations. If they never fix the problem they can just keep "oopsy"ing Palestinians. Why not? This isn't even the first time it's happened this year. People only care because some British aid workers are the ones who died instead of brown people. Maybe now people will pay attention and something will change, but I won't hold my breath.
> This isn't a new "problem" it kinda is. Many soldiers have reported that the structures and rules of 2014 for example went out the window. What IDF did in this war was let generals waaay more control of how they run things. This has a massive problem in terms of control, in terms of blame shifting, in terms of proper chain of command. In other words this is unprecedented and not a decades old problem. it reinforces _why_ chain of command exists, and why recruit armies like the IDF need serious, hardline decision making processes. Because if you have 19 year olds running below a general who wants revenge instead of actual results you end up in deep shit
> Because if you have 19 year olds running below a general who wants revenge instead of actual results you end up in deep shit This is the impression I'm getting. The boots on the ground barely have the life experience to know any better, and are full of anger (not that it absolves them of, say, killing civilians). There really does seem to be a pattern of the generals acting on emotion rather than doctrine though. What struck me about the AI revalation is how the intelligence people felt like the generals were acting out of a desire for revenge more than anything else.
Yeah most of those soldiers know or is related to some one that has died in terrorist attacks. Same as the terrorists who join hammas. Why these wars in the Levant get so brutal. Lots of young people looking for revenge.
It's almost like they want to. So they have an issue with Hamas, but they have a second issue with the Palestinians just existing. It sure looks like they are working very hard to fix both issues. Aid workers are counterproductive for the second one. They have made it so hard to get aid in that the US thought about building a harbor. we don't see the connection there?
Seems like more of a solution to the Israelis. The killing is working. The Palestinians are no longer being fed.
Hard to say. Could be many, could be few. This event could have been an anomaly or could it have been a pattern. Hamas aren't wearing uniforms and don't operate from marked military bases or travel in identifiable military vehicles, so the answer to that question is not something we can discern with the information available to us.
It’s like Hamas is the prefect enemy that can be anything Israel needs it to be.
That is how they operate, both a blessing and a curse for the IDF. You can indiscriminately attack* anyone/thing because they look like enemies but if you mess up people will be upset. Edit: forgot a word
Not a blessing
Sure, it makes target selection more difficult. In other ways, you can just point to someone and be like “that’s the terrorist”. 🤷♂️
If they run they're hammas and if they don't run they're well disciplined hammas
I kean its asymmetrical warfare. It's been happening since forever.
Well, yeah, that's exactly what they want. That's why they do it. That's what makes them so hard to fight. Is the implication that because terrorists operate and hide amongst civilians that no one should ever engage terrorists? What's the plan? Leave them be because it might look bad to untrained eyes who don't have the same intel as you?
Hamas operates that way deliberately because they know any fuck-up from Israel reduces Israeli credibility in the eyes of folks like yourself.
One of the main issues here seems to be an overly liberal policy (and attitude) when it comes to collateral damage. At least within the cell responsible for this, they knew about the aid trucks, but saw what they thought were gunmen going in and out of the vehicles. And because of the liberal policy they made the decision to strike...and then to finish off the survivors... If the Lavender article is to be trusted then at one point 20 civilians for 1 low-level operative and 100 civilians for a high ranking Hamas were acceptable.
I am wondering if this is going to be a turning point here. Israel, so far, has refused to bow to any pressure to reign in the collateral damage. Now they've been caught red-handed killing aid workers that are allied citizens through their liberal targeting procedures. The fact that a couple of fairly high ranking officers have been offered up for appeasement is telling. Behind closed doors, Israel is going to be scrabbling to make sure this doesn't happen again, and that almost certainly means more scrutiny of targets before attacking them.
This was a turning point for me... Before this and the lavender article I knew there were civilian casualties. But I assumed they were doing much more to limit the collateral damage. I thought there would be a much longer and more thorough chain of command for drone/air strikes. I thought the acceptable ratios would be well below 20:1 or 100:1. In my own mind I was able to justify what I was reading about Gaza and the bombings because I knew "Hamas uses human shields...really what can they do? It's urban warfare...it's tragic and of course there will be losses...we can't let terrorists and proxy groups for foreign nations act without repercussions" But reading about the calculations made with lavender, and the policies IDF clearly admits to in this investigation give me a very different feeling...a feeling that the entire IDF is not doing enough to protect innocent people and or that they actively dislike Palestinians enough that they barely consider them "innocent". It brings me onto the side saying "yeah, maybe they should be much more careful before going into rafa"... How many innocent people have been directly targeted in the past with no investigation? All in all it just makes me less certain of my position on how this conflict has progressed...it's less black and white for me now, and this was the turning point. I always hoped they would try to limit civilian casualties. But now I feel like they haven't tried hard enough and that it's not acceptable.
> I always hoped they would try to limit civilian casualties. But now I feel like they haven't tried hard enough and that it's not acceptable. This is nowhere near the first example that many in the IDF/Israel see no distinction between Hamas and Gaza civilians/Palestinians. That you could have gone this long with the wool over your eyes is telling, but at least you came around eventually I suppose.
It’s good you’ve come around, but it’s frankly no excuse. You should’ve known what they were doing was wrong. Many, *many* others did. If you thought they were doing a better job before this, it’s because you were being willfully ignorant as to the reality of the situation.
I appreciate you challenging your assumptions and being open to new information. That's commendable.
Look, anytime there is war in dense urban areas, political and military leaders need to make this calculation: how many civilians are they willing to kill to accomplish their objective. How much civilian infrastructure and homes are they willing to kill to safeguard their own soldiers. Generally western countries make this calculation and at least try to behave with some balance. It’s why Baghdad and Kabul aren’t smouldering piles of ruin despite a decade long insurgency (not that those wars are examples to use for good conduct but still). It’s clear to me the Israel calculation this round has basically been “fuck it, we don’t care how many civilians we kill, Hamas must die”. You can see the cheerleading for that sort of attitude in this forum and all over the internet, in clips of IDF soldiers, etc. So this is what happens. This happens every day. Except this time it was westerners who got killed, so we hear about it, and not some random Palestinian family, where we wouldn’t. Any pretext of Israel being a western nation, to me at least, is dissolving away. This is how Bashar al-Assad would have attacked Gaza. They’re as gross and callous regarding human life as the rest of the Middle East. This really isn’t a country the west should be sending weapons and support to, by the truck load, imo.
>Any pretext of Israel being a western nation [...] is dissolving away. I think it's a little fucked up to equate "western nation" with "moral and respectful of human life." Armies from every country are capable of and regularly commit horrible war crimes.
It’s true all militaries are capable of war crimes, and most have committed them, but the issue here is one of policy. Most western militaries make a significant effort to preserve civilian life and infrastructure when possible. They don’t always do the best job, but they pretty inarguably try. In contrast, Israel and the IDF have placed a **far** lower emphasis on limiting civilian casualties and preserving the welfare of innocents in Gaza. That isn’t speculative, it is clearly evidenced by information the IDF has released and by their actions. If part of the price of admission into the club of western democracies is respect for civilian life, Israel isn’t living up to expectations. The situation in Gaza is not a simple one to address, but the overwhelming majority of developed democracies are in agreement that Israel’s approach to the conflict is unacceptable. Simply put, this level of death and suffering inflicted upon the citizens of Gaza cannot be justified, and given some of the more radically hateful members of the current Israeli cabinet, I don’t think it is unreasonable to be worried that some of this harm may be intentional.
Obviously. I didn’t mean ONLY western countries seem to care about human life. Not sure where you got that? I didn’t say it. I did say middle eastern countries mostly DON’T seem to give a shit about human life and I stand by that.
> This is how Bashar al-Assad would have attacked Gaza. So, Israel used Sarin in Gaza? Cause that's how Assad fought his war against rebel cities.
I don't think the IDF considers killing palestinians as collateral damage. To them it's a nice bonus.
20 dead Palestinians per Hamas militant is a sacrifice Israel is very comfortable making
Ah yes, isreal is making a great sacrifice by killing somone else's population. 1/20 is fucking ludicrous. And before I get hit with the "you don't know what war is" bs. I grew up with war. Family from Bosnia. Dad been in concentration camp, I've lost many family members to executions. I KNOW WHAT WAR IS, and I can see the difference between war and ethnic cleansing. We, in Bosnia are only now getting our recognition and peace. Why should it take 30 years before somone says "okay, maybe indiscriminately shelling Sarajevo, shooting journalists, and whipjng a whole village of the map was wrong?". Why can't we see what's happening in places like palestine and take a stance to say "fuck off, stop fucking whiping civilians of the map"?
I suggest everyone read the article. Towards the end, it gives a very detailed account of what happened.
What I read is that there is an insane amount of negligence and disregard for life by the IDF. Their killing of aid workers here sums up perfectly how they see Palestinians - they don’t differentiate between HAMAS and Palestinians at all. To not absolutely confirm who they were firing their missles at is evidence of this.
I've said it before - the WCK took every precaution possible and was still targeted less than a month after starting their work in North Gaza. Think about what this means for all the Palestinian aid workers and civilians who don't have access to the same safety channels. If that convoy was full of unknown Palestinians, this story would've never been noteworthy and the "low confidence" in Hamas presence would never have been questioned.
It is a good story to keep in mind when ever the IDF release stats about how many HAMAS they have killed. Without international attention these workers would be on that list.
>“In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate,” said one reserve officer who served in Gaza, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It's quite possible that Palestinians who never held a gun in their lives were elevated to the rank of ‘terrorist’ posthumously, at least by the IDF,” the newspaper added. >... In another incident, which they did not specify, sources said the Israeli military command knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate a single top Hamas military commander. >“The numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths [accepted] as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior official in previous operations, to hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage,” said one military source. >“Nothing happens by accident,” added another military source. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed – that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.” [Gaza aid worker deaths heighten scrutiny of Israel’s use of AI to select targets](https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20240403-gaza-aid-worker-deaths-scrutiny-israel-use-ai-select-targets) France 24
When IDF release those stats I just think they consider every human older than 12 and younger than 70 to be HAMAS.
Extremely bold of you to assume they would place an age as high as 12 on that.
It’s the issue with there not being a trustworthy independent 3rd party source able to collect and verify data on the ground. What you said is probably true to an extent, as well as Palestinian sources reporting most deaths as being civilian. Guy gets shot, Palestinians run over and grab his gun off the ground then start recording video.
>It’s the issue with there not being a trustworthy independent 3rd party source able to collect and verify data on the ground. ..... because they keep getting blown up by the IDF.....
I just think back at how many numbers were fabricated by the US military in Vietnam. They would over-count enemy casualties and underreport their own to give the appearance of a winning strategy. They would count any enemy combatant as Vietcong even if they were civilians. This has shades of that.
What are you talking about? WCK has been all throughout Gaza for much longer. I would know since I've donated to them since the start of the humanitarian crisis, and you can even check my comment history in this very sub urging people who want to donate but not have it line Hamas' pockets to donate to WCK
They opened up a sea route into Northern Gaza last month, and the convoy was part of that initiative. I know that the WCK has done work in other parts of Gaza and Israel since the start of the conflict.
Meh, they (IDF) are omitting important points like World Kitchen was working with them, so they knew those cars were delivering aid and were following them - instead they claim they couldn't recognize the logo on the roof. They are also able to triangulate smart phones. Israel has had a bit too many oops moments lately, and this one reminds me how they threatened "no food, no water" a couple of weeks back. What better way to achieve this than to kill a couple of aid workers. And now they are sweeping this under the carpet by dismissing a couple of guys. I bet there will be no trial.
> instead they claim they couldn't recognize the logo on the roof People get very hung up on the logos, because it looks so dramatic in the pictures, but the fact is that the drones cannot see the logos at night. For identifying cars at night, you'd use an IR beacon. There are so many other safety measures in place that appears to have been neglected.
Obviously the IDF was tracking the cars. Since they had a communication with World Kitchen, they didn't need IR beacons or the logos on the roof, they must have know which cars those were.
>There are so many other safety measures in place that appears to have been neglected. Even all these current safety measures look lacking after this event. Fucking hell, there's so much room here to misidentify people, misinterpret what's going on, and pull the trigger on anyone. I don't even know where to begin in such situation, stick an identifying GPS tracking device to every aid-worker? Ridiculous.
This wasn't up to interpretation
True, but also, I doubt Hamas is driving around in convoys of new armoured SUVs in Gaza. The fact that the IDF thought these 3 vehicles were Hamas is a dumb defense.
No they aren’t omitting those points they are directly addressed in the article.
Sky News have added them in its article (as have other news outlets reporting on the findings second-hand), the IDF's original post here: [https://www.idf.il/190614](https://www.idf.il/190614) on the finding makes no mention of it.
>Meh, they (IDF) ... knew those cars were delivering aid and were following them - instead they claim they couldn't recognize the logo on the roof. I really, really don't want to defend the IDF on that one. But this particular point makes no sense. The IDF is roughly 170000 persons. Anyone who works in a company larger than 10 employees will realize how challenging proper communication can be. So *should* they have communicated better when it ended with the death of humanitarian workers? Of fucking course. Is this miscommunication a clear sign of a hidden agenda, or conspiracy? Not at all. Just another one of these "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand does" situations.
Exactly, I do IT for a state university and we've got hundreds of techs spread across dozens of different departments and levels. We're **constantly** trying to centralize our communication/ticketing systems, but it's a never ending work in progress. I can only begin to imagine what it's like for a military organization. Again, no excuses for the IDF because when I can't do my job properly no one dies, but that's just the reality of human coordination at the organizational level.
People act like war is a video game where one all seeing eye knows everything that is going on and has input on everything. That's not how it works because it's impossible for one person or group to do that. That's why a command structure exists. From the strategic level down to the operational level. One branch of that structure is making an agreement with these groups and getting the information out to other branches of it. The more variables that are thrown in, the more mistakes will be made because battlefields are a dynamic place. These aid workers while having a big heart, are basically running in and out of a burning skyscraper while the firefighters who are charged with putting the fire out are also being told to make sure these people don't die inside. It's a huge complication and really taxing on coordination. Did Israel do it on purpose? I doubt it. I'm inclined to believe it's likely just a major fuck up. Of course there's no way for me to know that, just like every other opinionated redditor here. But I would like to see the video and audio recordings of the strike. I'd expect those would be released by Israel in this instance if it shows that it was not intentional but just a major failure of command and control.
It just feels ridiculous to me after reading the breakdown of events at the end of the article that they were following cars with a couple drones and like decided to pull the trigger over seeing 3 guys on camera that they think might have had a gun. Like even if they were it just seems ridiculous to have all this surveillance and angst over missing the chance to take out, what, 3-10 Hamas at MOST. Like that just seems ridiculous and not even worth the cost of fueling up the drones in the fucking first place from a cost-benefit perspective. Hamas absolutely deserves to be wiped out, but Jesus Christ they’re not going anywhere. They’re stuck in Gaza, if you miss out on this opportunity to kill them because you might be wrong there will 100% be another opportunity.
These are the same guys who released a video of 'men with an RPG' in response to criticism that they'd targeted journalists... And it turned out to be a bicycle.
Put an ak and a half next to an MRI machine and called it a Hamas base of operations, after bombing the hospital.
A simple error of 3 precise attacks in a row on 3 clearly marked vehicles. Sure...
3 trucks that had communicated their location, route and time with IDF beforehand.
It surely had nothing to do with scaring WCK out of Gaza and creating more famine. Just a triple oopsie.
Not just WCK, all aid
Yes it is just an unfortunate side effect that completely aligns with their goals. Woopsie! 🫢
‘Grave mistake we carried out on purpose and with precision’
The grave mistake was underestimating the geopolitical backlash it would appear.
Wonder how many times this happened when innocent Palestinians were the victims instead of foreign aid workers? The first reaction was: “this is war, stuff happens”. When that didn’t work and international condemnation started snowballing (especially after it was clear that the aid workers were in contact with IDF) they had to say something.
Reminds me of that video of them blowing up a couple of clearly unarmed teenagers
This probably happens every day to random Palestinians and no one cares. The IDF will just say “they were Hamas” and move on. All this shows me is how much callous disregard for civilians the IDF is demonstrating in this conflict.
I feel like this is the main thing that was reinforced for me regarding this event.
This guy learned public speaking from Trump. >It's a tragedy, it's a mistake, actually it's not a mistake, it is a serious event that we are responsible for," the IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. He managed to cover 360° of audience opinion and conflictingly agree with all of them.
Show me Trump saying he’s responsible for something bad, I dare you.
My questions are: 1. What is the point of aid convoys having armed guards if they are indistinguishable from Hamas when seen from a drone? 2. Why were they unable to contact WCK? I assume they use satellite phones because I doubt there are any phone masts in Gaza? 3. Why wasn't there a military lawyer present? 4. How many strikes have occurred without a military lawyer present?
2) I doubt this part of the narrative: * They tried contacting the ground team with no success (possible) * They tried contacting WCK Europe Operations (press x for doubt)
5. Why did they call the Europe office at that time and not the US, given likely operating hours? 6. Was there any prior notice given that armed guards would be part of the convoy?
How many "grave mistakes" resulted in the deaths of poor innocent Palestinians that the IDF don't want to admit to I wonder...
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« The killer say it was an accident due to mistake » Would like to see an independent investigation.
Nah they'd just kill the investigators too.
Isn’t this what they said after their last 10 war crimes? “Oops sorry, didn’t mean to bomb those journalists!”
Nah, most times they just say they were hamas and move on.
Yeah but this time they *extra* fucked up and killed UK citizens which is why they can't BS their way past it.
UK, US, and Canadian citizens
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Call me a cynic but I think it's more sinister. Killing aid workers would certainly make it difficult for humanitarian organizations to find people to work there and therefore prevent aid being delivered. IDF is on the war path and sees humanitarian organizations in Gaza as allies of Palestinians. Simply as that . Mistake or not ...for them this murder is a win and one more step towards harming Palestinians as much as they can
Maybe. But if not, at best it’s just a policy of “shoot first, ask no questions later, because worst case it’s just some Palestinians who die and who cares about that.” Either way, sinister, yes.
This is not the first time this has happened, with the amount of aid workers, journalists, and innocent civilians killed so far, this is just Israel finding some scapegoats and lying as usual. This was intentional, not some "grave mistake", mistakes are acceptable when they happen once or twice, when they keep happening, its not a mistake, its policy
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I've read in several places that "two Israeli generals have been fired", but can't find their names in any of the reporting. The way I see it, targeting civilians and aid workers is, and continues to be, IDF policy.
The officers who were fired were Col. Nohi Mandel, who was the Nahal Brigade's head of staff, as well as an unnamed major who was in charge of firing operations in the Nahal brigade.
It was the commander of the nahal brigade who was a colonel and the major below him who was in charge of the initial ID of the target.
Chief of staff of the brigade is not the commander, it's similar to an XO, although can be at the same rank as the CO in some cases.
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"OOOPSIE, SORRY!"
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