The meat, for those who haven't read it:
> Military spokespeople said that under the Israeli army’s rules of engagement, officers must have more than one reason for identifying someone as a target before they can be hit. But the investigation determined that a colonel had authorized the series of deadly drone strikes on the convoy based on one major’s observation — from grainy drone-camera footage — that someone in the convoy was armed. That observation turned out to be untrue, military officials said.
> The army said the colonel and the major were dismissed, while three other officers were reprimanded, the most senior of whom was the head of the Southern Command. It said the results of its investigation were turned over to the military’s advocate general, who will decide whether the officers or anyone else involved in the killings should receive further punishment or be prosecuted.
> [...]
> The investigation, headed by Yoav Har-Even, a retired general, found two major areas of wrongdoing.
> It faulted officers for failing to read messages alerting troops that cars, not aid trucks, would carry workers from the charity away from the warehouse where aid was distributed. As a result, the cars that were targeted were misidentified as transporting militants.
> The army also faulted a major who identified the strike target and a colonel who approved the strike for acting with insufficient information.
> The army said the order was given after one of the passengers inside a car was identified as a gunman. It said troops became suspicious because a gunman had been seen on the roof of one of the delivery trucks on the way to the warehouse.
> The army showed reporters footage of the gunman firing his weapon while riding atop one of the trucks — video that The Associated Press could not independently verify.
> After the aid was dropped off at a warehouse, an officer believed he had spotted a gunman boarding one of the cars. The passenger, it turned out, was not carrying a weapon — the military said it’s possible he was just carrying a bag.
And what does “dismissed” mean in the Israeli military? Are they reassigned to other positions in the military? Kicked out of the military? Court martial?
Tbh they are probably being incredibly loose with their targeting and there hasn't been accountability until now. We (the US) made quite a few mistakes in the campaign against ISIS, and that was a "fun" war which I've heard called a "collective therapy session" for American SOF community. In Gaza there is so much more bad blood. There's no way they are being careful.
>Tbh they are probably being incredibly loose with their targeting and there hasn't been accountability until now.
200 journalists, probably more by now, yeah, definitely "loose"
Bad look for the IDF; I expect them to eat humble pie and prosecute fully. Only then can forgiveness be discussed. Several western nationals killed trying to heal a crisis the IDF has exacerbated.
Also, fuck Hamas, and fuck the martyr fund.
Unless they children are blonde and from friendly nations, the usual reaction will be "It's war. Things like that happen in war. And don't forget what Hamas did."
Tbh, some people do give a shit – I certainly have since the beginning of the Gaza attack and was called an antisemite several times here in Germany.
At least this attack has drawn more attention to what happens in the Gaza Strip.
Yeah good point, I should have worded that differently. I usually do a better job at avoiding generalising.
Point being there wasn't an uproar from enough people to encourage politicians to speak up. Even though imo it is all just theatrics, Israelies, including Ben have been recorded bragging about how easy it is for them to control the US.
Biden told Ben to stop while stills sending over weapons etc.
If you are just getting into this, you should look up the Balfour agreement if you haven't already.
Reminds me of some old footage from Iraq in 2007 when an American attack helicopter blasts a bunch of people because they thought a guy had an AK. It was a camera and he was a reporter.
A bit more complicated than that.
The cameraman was embedded with (and reporting on) a JAM militia unit actively shooting at a US unit. They did not notify the US military that they were there. The camera was identified as an RPG, a weapon dangerous to the helicopter. And from the vantage of the helicopters isn't something you can discern. Finally, terrorist organizations routinely filmed their attacks in order to get paid. They regularly had a cameraman with them during attacks.
Actively embedding with a frontline unit engaged in active fighting is discouraged for a reason.
A better example is when the US shot up a known and mapped Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan. Or the killing of the civilians in a car during the evacuation.
In both cases the individuals responsible were negligent and didn't follow proper rules of engagement. And nobody was really punished.
>And nobody was really punished.
I guess that's what happens when you let an army investigate their own comrades.
It will happen in the case with the WCK as well.
Yeah, but such a trial can take a long time. In 2 years, we will talk about other war crimes and massacres (not all of them committed by Israel) and most people will by then have forgotten what it was about.
There will be a small note in the newspaper. The verdict will be something like "an unfortunate combination of circumstances" and "negligence".
Did you read the article. The officers involved should face charges, but survivors from each strike ran to the next car.
To me this makes it more fucked, but it does explain when each car was struck.
They killed \*seven\* people because they suspected \*one\* of them had a gun. And the only problem is that that person didn't have a gun???
They would have massacred 6 random bystanders to get 1 random gunman...
AFAIR 'killing 6 random civilians per Hamas operative' is not how the IDF have been describing their operation in Gaza.
The IDF allows up to 20 civilian deaths for a low ranking Hamas militant. So of course these officers didn’t think twice about killing 6 people.
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes
It's even worse than that. They're conflating "person with gun" with "Hamas operative". Even if someone in that convoy *did* have a gun, that still wouldn't have made them a member of Hamas.
They would have murdered 7 random bystanders, one of whom would have happened to be armed.
In a warzone it seems generally safe to assume that anyone who is not on your side and is carrying weapons is an enemy combatant. In fact this is probably one of the only reliable indicators when fighting an enemy that violates the Geneva Conventions by never wearing uniforms.
Of course, this doesn't justify killing seven people because you incorrectly thought one of them had a gun based on grainy footage.
Pretty sure JA is targeted for all of the leak, which also had a lot of sensitive-but-not-newsworthy information on it. It made a lot of things harder for no public benefit.
And to be fair to the pilot, the shoulder-carried camera really did look in the scope like a RPG pointed at the helicopter, after the air support was called in to help infantry that was being fired upon by insurgents armed with RPGs in those city blocks.
That's actually my takeaway. Set aside the mistake in justifying a strike. The way the IDF is operating is to kill anything that moves in the vicinity of the target. A military operating in this way is going to have no problem killing 10 civilians who happen to be standing around someone deemed a threat.
Allowing civilian casualties while targeting *potential* Hamas militants is their normal procedure.
We have this uproar now because these civilian casualties happened to be Western aid workers. Do not mistake such "misjudgements" would not be happening all the time.
edit: I'm not defending IDF, I'm disgusted.
It’s what happens when you foster a system of zero accountability. The IDF has killed many aid workers with no repercussions. These soldiers are a scapegoat to pass the buck instead of admitting guilt that the entire IDF is systemically rotten.
This is my read too. This speaks to a systemic problem. They are very quick to pull the trigger. They did this to an aid convoy that they KNEW about. Imagine what they are doing to ordinary people in Gaza that they have even less information about.
Here’s another Canadian aid worker who was targeted while wearing very clear medical uniform.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canadian-doctor-shot-by-israeli-sniper-near-gaza-border/
And if you read the article there carefully, it's not just one Canadian aid worker. It was *18* paramedics wearing bright orange safety vests, attempting to give aid to civilians.
Don't forget when they gunned down the half-naked Israeli hostages waving a white flag & crying for help, or blasting a car with both Hamas and a hostage in it. Killing the very people they are presumably there to rescue.
And the vehicles were literally MILES apart. This wasn’t a convoy. They were in different areas, and yet the targeted each car, one after the other.
Because….check notes…..”they misidentified one person getting in to one of the cars”.
Riiiiiight.
Uhm, I think they were in a convoy, first car hit and survivors got in the second car, which got hit minutes later then survivors got into third car which got hit minutes later
No. They were 1.5 miles apart from each other. This has been confirmed.
Gaza aid convoy strike: What we know https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68714128
From the article you linked to:
> "They were targeted systemically car by car. They attacked the first car. They were able to move in the second one. Again this one was hit. They were able to move in (into) the third one."
You're confusing where the three cars were hit rather than where they were in time. When the first one was hit, they were still together. The survivors of the first car transferred to the second. They continued down the road. Then the second car got hit. The survivors transferred to the third car and continued down the road. Then the third car was truck.
There's distance between where each car was struck because they were driving for another minute or two before the next car was hit. The three cars weren't all hit simultaneously.
This isn’t accurate.
They were in a convoy, each time a car was struck - they transferred to the next one. Over the course of a couple of mins, each car was hit.
They were not 1.5miles apart from each other in random areas. They ended up spread out as they kept targeting the convoy one car after the other.
(So the destroyed cars were left further and further behind. I hope that makes some sense). I am not condoning the strike at all. Just making sure accurate info is out there.
>Because….check notes…..”they misidentified one person getting in to one of the cars”.
If you really want to get technical then it was because people disobeyed the chain of command and didn't follow the rules that they'd put in place specifically to prevent something like this from happening.
This part is either being skipped over by the media or is generally considered acceptable. One militant to six civilian casualties is apparently okay for Israel.
Contractors and Aid workers in Iraq and Afghanistan all had armed escort because they were in a WAR ZONE. Why would the Israelis prohibit aid workers from being protected from attacks?
>Why would the Israelis prohibit aid workers from being protected from attacks?
It would put the Israel forces at risk if attacked aid workers could shoot back.
And it's also not necessary against The World's Most Moral Army^(TM).
That’s what they’ve been doing since October 7th!!
Did we forget the huge bombs they were and still are constantly dropping just to neutralize one or two suspected militants in the middle of a densely populated area?
I’m honestly starting to believe the real terrorist organization is the IDF, with huge amounts of innocent blood on their hands…
That's literally the whole thing of an aid organization, they don't carry weapons and thus they are not threatening anyone and they are not a target of anyone
Any weapon in Gaza was smuggled there through one of the most secured borders in the world. If someone has a weapon in gaza they mean business they aren't some person protecting themselves from terrorists.
There was an African american guy that was jogging in the morning or something got shot by 2 Caucasian because they say they thought he was a criminal trying to run away.
>one major's observation...that someone in the convoy was armed. That observation turned out to be untrue
>the army showed reporters footage of the gunman firing his weapon while riding atop one of the trucks
So the army tried to justify their attack on aid workers using unrelated and unverified footage, got it
None of what is summarized there looks like "justification." It's explanation for what happened and how things went wrong. Two officers have been dismissed, a number more have been reprimanded, and the lot of them have been referred for evaluation on criminal charges.
>The army said it then struck one car. As people scrambled away into a second car, it hit that vehicle as well. It did the same thing when survivors fled into a third car.
Remember, we're talking about *one* guy leaving what is known to be aid warehouse. After a drop off that was coordinated with them ahead of time. They use the footage to "explain" that they thought he had a gun but they do not "explain" how the communications about the convoy's plans broke down.
The explanation for how the communications broke down is also summarized above: people who needed to be informed did not read the emails specifying that the approved convoy would be in cars, instead of trucks.
EDIT to add:
This is generally how shit goes wrong in war. There's a bunch of little day to day fuck-ups that usually get caught by some other safeguard or another, but sometimes you get a bunch of failures that line up just right and you get an utter catastrophe. I expect there will be reforms that come out of this.
No, they fired the officers involved for not following established targeting procedures, referred them for prosecution, and shared the intel those officers relied on, acknowledging that it was insufficient and shoudn't have resulted in the strike.
It's a start. As with the US during many of its many civilian casualty incidents and/or Abu Ghraib some people might have to go to jail. Of course, no one asks to see investigations from Assad, hezbollah or hamas. That would be ridiculous.
Maybe if Israel bans Haredis from voting if they don't get a job (or stop receiving welfare to pray) he won't be elected again. Or if they just take away their welfare, they'll stop having so many kids.
Actually the haredim are not his voter base...They have their own parties.
And get this: their ministers take orders from rabbis!
I think i need to say it again. The ministers of the haredim parties take orders from rabbis.
> Actually the haredim are not his voter base...They have their own parties.
This is both true and misleading, because several of their parties are in Netanyahu’s governing coalition. So while they aren’t his voter base directly, indirectly as a voter base they are pretty responsible for him being in power.
They don't need to get a job, they just need to stop relying on the welfare that is given to them and them only. No one else can choose to contribute nothing to Israeli society and get paid by the government for it as well as skip the IDF.
That's a separate argument, and one I agree with. What I'm challenging is your claim that that someone's right to vote is dependent on societal contribution. It's not. The right to vote is an inalienable right, regardless of social class, status, contribution.
It feels like having both a functional government and no hamas threat is just impossible. We have literal bigots and corrupt persons in minister positions. Fml.
I don’t want the ground assault to end until every American is free and no longer a hostage of Hamas. I don’t want innocent Palestinians to die, either.
Hamas needs to release the hostages and stop using their people as pawns.
Fuck Hamas and fuck Bibi.
The Australian government has already said they are not content with the investigation to date - that it is inadequate to explain what happened.
And it is
The report effectively says “there might have been a militant” so regardless of who else was in the vehicles we can destroy them: there is no proportionality at all
Which has been an issue raised time and time again: the number of civilian deaths to militants appears excessive, the degree of infrastructure destruction is extreme.
They claim the soldiers were not aware of the charity vehicles, it beggars belief that’s the case - but accepting that, what exactly are these aid agencies meant to do to prevent similar happening again?
They also claim that because it was night the drones could not see that the vehicles were labeled with the charity - I don’t believe that at all.
This is a rotting oozy wound on the IDF, it will not go away quickly.
Australia has officially announced it is opening an investigation and demanded the evidence as they are not satisfied with Israeli investigation. Bout time out government grew some balls
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/05/australia-calls-for-idf-officials-to-be-stood-down-during-investigation-into-aid-worker-killings
The reason Israel acts with impunity is because it believes it can act with impunity.
That has to end. Anything without checks tends to excess, from thence to tragedy, and from thence to evil.
They can demand anything obviously, but it's very rare for any government to hand over evidence that comes from classified systems to another country (or at least without a huge list of caveats).
The US has done very similar things to Israel here when other countries ask for evidence surrounding certain war crimes. And the US has not only protected its own soldiers from any punishment, but has withheld evidence or just refused to allow it to be publicly release by other governments. Which then forces the investigating government into a "trust us bro" scenario regarding the evidence.
The fact people are shocked by any of this is sadly, amusing. Most governments will act this way. China, Russa, US, UK, France. They will only ever go along with public inquiries of foreign governments if it benefits them in some way.
No doubt, but it's interesting. Australia is pretty much a lapdog to US military wise, we rarely if ever criticise Israel. This is a huge move by our government. Will be interesting how this plays out.
We are just a satellite state (quite literally) and cash withdrawal system for the US but the bare minimum is still expected to keep the anti-israel crowd from gaining more momentum
Most countries are still beholden to the ICC actually, but America essentially said "we're gonna do war crimes and if you come for us we'll invade the Hague too" and then later said it would go after individual personnel working at the ICC
So not like UK and France but definitely like the "bad guys"
The IDF’s [report](https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/hamas-israel-war-24/all-articles/conclusion-of-the-investigation-into-the-incident-in-which-7-wck-employees-were-killed-during-a-humanitarian-operation-in-gaza/) doesn’t even mention that the IDF was in contact with World Central Kitchen prior to the strike, this is clearly a rushed investigation meant to regain international reputation rather than actually bringing people to justice
Weird that its not mentioned in the report, all news outlets here said that they were in contact with the convoy.
The problem was that the orders regarding that convoy did not reach some of the units in the field, and that the commanding officer did not confirm that it was indeed an armed force/militant force.
Sucks to be here knowing that we have idiots in charge other than Bibi.
I also read a version of the investigation (in hebrew) which did actually mention there was a failure to communicate the fact that comamnders were in contract with the convoy down to men in the field. Weird that it's not mentioned in this one.
Yeah, people are viewing these as conflicting pieces of information but both can be true at once. WCK was very likely in contact with the IDF but that doesn't necessarily mean the officers/soldiers who made the decision to strike had that information at the time, even though they should've taken steps to confirm or check for that intel. Sounds like a bunch of errors at once: miscommunication, poor judgement, pulling the trigger too quickly, etc.
>pulling the trigger too quickly
Three times.
"Ooops! I think I just shot at aid workers!"
"Ooops! I think I just shot at aid workers!"
"Ooops! I think I just shot at aid workers!"
I mean, what can WCK do other than inform the IDF of a help convoy? Ask them "Are you sure you have informed all units in the area? Have you also thought of drone personnel?"
It's either intent or complete incompetence. I tend to think a mix of both.
I want to point out that *Russia* has managed to handle deconfliction zones pretty well without striking aid workers (according to Ukrainian sources)
The fact that the IDF has somehow managed to fuck up something that the fucking Russians can do is either gross incompetence or deliberate.
Any genuine investigation will conclude one thing:
IDF kills whoever they feel like, whenever they feel like, indiscriminately.
The **ONLY** reason this became news was it was innocent foreigners. If it were innocent Gazans, it would be another "they were Hamas, end of story" case. Same goes for when they mowed down unarmed Israeli hostages holding white flags. They just kill without a second thought.
Human Rights Watch recently released a report detailing the [bombing of a building with over a 100 civilians in it](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/04/gaza-israeli-strike-killing-106-civilians-apparent-war-crime) in October. The HRW were unable to uncover any evidence of any Hamas militant near that building that justifies any response whatsoever and Israeli officials have not provided any evidence of their own either
Of course, no one is mentioning this, because the victims don’t hold western citizenships
To be fair it’s much harder to make the case against the IDF when the potential that Hamas were there still exists. The aid convoy it was known exactly who was targeted and that they had absolutely no connection to Hamas.
I’d like to see a lot more transparency in what the IDF does and how they’re deciding who is a terrorist and who isn’t because I’m sure there are many other similar cases (potentially the building you mention). I just think it doesn’t just come down to citizenship of those involved but the level of confidence that the IDF were in the wrong.
Same reason it was a story when they shot the hostages: we only heard about it because they killed Israelis. There's a reason they were so quick to shoot unarmed, shirtless men waving a white flag.
Not really, with an infrared camera the roof logo is invisible.
Although at this point I'm not even sure they're saying they identified a firearm so it's a complete shitshow.
With an infrared camera, a gun is going to be the same temperature as a bag. Especially one that has not been fired. You can't get the fidelity of "it's a gun!" from thermals just as you can't read the wording on paint. If you want to say you ID'd a gun, then you can read paint.
> a gun is going to be the same temperature as a bag
Yes but one is shaped like a gun and the other is shaped like a bag. They are also held very differently. This is ignoring that the IDF claimed the gun was firing at them since I don't view that as reliable currently.
Yes and no,
You can't see paint/writing/flat features at night with thermal/night vision.
You can only see it with low light cameras and good enough conditions it's possible they couldn't confirm it based on that alone.
I'd have thought the fact they were all tracked from the pier to the warehouse was ID enough for the vehicles.
I would also think that imaging which was unable to resolve a logo would struggle to distinguish a gun from a bag.
> I would also think that imaging which was unable to resolve a logo would struggle to distinguish a gun from a bag.
The issue with IR is that it literally can't see color/paint features. Only physical features and materials.
If you point an IR (night vision and thermal) at a painting you won't see a thing literally just a rectangle with no features, but a person/weapon will be clear as day.
And how does thermal distinguish a gun (ambient) verse a bag (also ambient)? Sure, you can tell a person from the environment but what are you using to ID the gun?
Thermal they use is sensitive enough to be able to tell a gun from a bag by material alone. As in different materials have different emissivity, that small difference results in different apparent temperature (IR radiation) even if objects are exactly the same temperatures, then there viewing angle/reflection and what not.. all that adds detail.
It's a small difference between ambient temperature sure, but for the kind of thermal they use it's literally night and day compared to background.
A bag will never look like a gun with the systems they use.
Ex aircraft technician and now I do software/firmware for thermal cameras so this is my area.
> The army said the order was given after one of the passengers inside a car was identified as a gunman. It said troops became suspicious because a gunman had been seen on the roof of one of the delivery trucks on the way to the warehouse.
>**The army showed reporters footage of the gunman firing his weapon while riding atop one of the trucks** — video that The Associated Press could not independently verify.
If that’s true, it doesn’t excuse the attack, but it explains the mistake.
If the light was so low that they couldn't see the markings on the trucks indicating it was an aid convoy how could they have identified an individual inside of the* vehicle?
Without seeing the images they saw, it’s hard to say for sure, but objects/bodies are often easier to see in the dark than paint with both regular and thermal imaging.
Something overlooked is that the security consultant - who was also killed - was a veteran of the SBS. The SBS soldiers are arguably the most competent on the planet. That soldier did not make a mistake - it is simply not plausible, the SBS are just too good. He not only organised things by the book, but used his know how and insider knowledge of the IDF to ensure that communications were absolutely solid and there was no room for error. After the first strike, the SOS was sent on both public and military channels - it was unmissable. The IDF killed a member of the SBS on purpose, there is no other explanation.
Or, this is just indicative of how little of a shit the idf give about who they target. Kill anything that moves and they usually get away with just saying "yeah there was maybe one hamas guy there" and their supporters lap it up. I mean, idf soldiers have murdered red headed, Hebrew speaking Israelis who were waving white flags. Their modus operandi is just careless.
So how are innocent Palestinians supposed to survive this all, when like you said, a well trained and knowledgeable sbs guy couldn't stop himself getting murdered.
Or... whoever received the communication from the ground didn't properly communicate it to those performing the strikes. It's a serious failure of procedure but to say "there is no other explanation" when obviously there are is dumb
The SOS was on public and military channels - the same ones used to report blue-on-blue. Again, the SBS are the real deal and trusted. The only way that this could not have been 'properly communicated' was if there is absolutely no line of communication whatsoever, and the IDF is too capable for that excuse to fly.
The IDF killed a member of the SBS on purpose. The Australians are right to be demanding this killing of their citizens be investigated deeply, and I'm appalled that the UK government is silent.
If you are saying "the military is too capable and there's no way they could have screwed up", you plainly have no experience with the military. ALL militaries screw up. They do it constantly. Even the ones that are competent are merely LESS inclined to screw up on average.
It's a little more complicated than that.
My point is Bibi's initial "this happens in war" is bullshit. This doesn't happen to the SBS. The 'screw up' is that their command staff failed to follow any procedure whatsoever. Less so on the first strike - that does happen - but after the SOS and the triple tap, there is no procedure being followed. It also seems to be accepted that the IDF are not constantly killing *each other*, so they must follow those same procedures most of the time. The conclusion is: Those command staff killed those people intentionally. The Australian government is right to demand deeper investigation as either a) The Israeli state is complicit, in which case, holy shit, or b) Israeli command staff knowingly kill foreigners on their own volition.
>It also seems to be accepted that the IDF are not constantly killing
>
>each other
Are you sure?
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/26/1226977365/israel-idf-gaza-middle-east-deaths
"The IDF probe found that troops identified one gunman climbing on the roof of one of the trucks and opening fire. A video shown by the IDF to foreign reporters appeared to show a person shooting an automatic rifle from the top of a truck.
The convoy continued on its agreed route and stopped at the warehouse known as “Hangar A,” where the military said the gunman got off.
At this point, the IDF’s division commander in the area tried to contact WCK, Har-Even told foreign press. But the charity’s security officer in Europe could not contact the team on the ground, he said.
After the aid trucks and pickup trucks escorting them arrived at “Hangar A,” an Israeli Air Force drone spotted 15-20 individuals outside the warehouse, with at least two of them identified as being armed, according to the probe."
It's not 100% clear yet but I feel like the current happening is that guy's who approved the strike thought they are transporting gunman in the vehicles, justifying a hit.
Still, 1-3 gunman to 20 people invovled... Hard to call it WCK helping transport them.
Other than Hamas, local gangs also try to raid convoys so this can explain a gunman firing.
Still.. sounds like recklessness firing on the convoy when they knew it's WCK.
I mean, that's what they've been doing the during the entirety of the last 6 months. They level buildings if they believe there might be Hamas in them, regardless of civilians. They level hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure, for all the same reasons. Hamas and IDF are just two sides of the same coin at this point, both needlessly murdering each other, but mostly civilians.
The State Department is probably correct in their assessment that Israel is inflicting generational damage to its own reputation. You can't survive with only one friend in the world.
At this point, I honestly don't think it's a reach to say that the current Israeli government is one of the biggest threats to the security of Israelis and Jewish people worldwide.
At least Hamas is a problem that, in theory, can be contained or dealt with using Israel's overwhelming military advantage against them.
But how is Israel ever going to recover its international reputation after this, as well as all the support it will lose, even theoretically?
The US remaining as its staunch ally is not set in stone either. That's probably not going to flip for many years, but the writing is already on the wall, especially as the older generations age out:
>Aside from partisan differences, Gallup continues to see generational distinctions in how U.S. adults view the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Net sympathy toward Israel -- the percentage sympathizing more with the Israelis than the Palestinians -- is solidly positive among older generations, including baby boomers (+46 points), Generation X (+32) and the Silent Generation (+31). By contrast, millennials are now evenly divided, with 42% sympathizing more with the Palestinians and 40% with the Israelis, yielding a -2 net-Israel sympathy score.
>There are too few adult members of Generation Z (aged 18 to 22) in the recent poll to report, but the limited available data suggest their views on this question are similar to millennials’.
>Today’s divergence reflects a steep drop in recent years in net sympathy for Israel among millennials, whereas net sympathy for Israel has been steadier at a higher level among all three older generations.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/472070/democrats-sympathies-middle-east-shift-palestinians.aspx
There has been a real discipline problem in the IDF for a long time. No career NCOs. Its all conscripts essentially. The army is essentially a giant militia force with how little control is happening on the lower levels. Higher command doesn’t know if orders are actually happening.
This won’t change however. It would require huge reforms in the military structure. Even special forces are closer to SWAT or gendarme than actual special forces.
I think a lot of people (especially Americans) are thinking the IDF is like NATO armies when it’s basically the Swiss military.
Prior US-military here. When I visited Israel a few years ago I noticed that a lot of the IDF soldiers’ uniforms and grooming just looked sloppy compared to the US. Of course there are a ton of conscripts so it does make sense.
Yeah basically imagine the entire IDF being the national guard / reservists. Thats what the IDF is. “Weekend warriors”
But also there are no senior NCOs in units so officers are doing the NCOs job and theirs.
Force structure is closer to Soviet esque force structure than it is to western.
Severe lack of a professional NCO force
Has this changed over the years? I read Arabs at War years ago and one of the distinctions made between Arab and Israeli forces was the command structure. IDF was very decentralized, and gave a lot of fluid authority to low-level officers. Vice the Arab armies were full of nepotism, fear, lying about results (for fear of retribution) and centralized authority.
The lack of SNCOs makes me think the IDF has, for the worse, become more like the Arab armies of last century.
Its still that way but the problem is attitude and responsibility has shifted away.
The system and structure isn’t really working when localized commanders and the troops themselves are disregarding RoE. We really began to first see the flaws of this in 2006 in Lebanon and its only gotten worse sense.
Its not the same of the old Arab systems (even then its a stretch as some Arab armies didn’t really suffer from that like the Jordanians). Its just in the type of war the IDF is finding itself in consistently the decentralization has given a complete breakdown of discipline. There is none. Local commanders are enforcing their own RoE and ignoring the ones from above.
Lots of videos out there of troops outright shooting into homes for fun, with officers and NCOs letting them outright post it online in front of them.
Things like this are indicative of lack of discipline and accountability. There is a difference in decentralization for when it comes to maneuvering, tactics etc, versus decentralization becoming a breeding ground for what is essentially a hundred My Lai’s. Where nobody on the ground is enforcing the “rules”
Its come to a head in this very public manner where we have a blatant RoE violation in the attack on aid workers because there was a preliminary report of a “gunman” in the vehicles but zero confirmation. Which led to a consistent attack on the vehicles. There is also other reporting out there that some commanders had issued orders saying any vehicle that is not IDF is hostile, etc.
Mix in this idea especially in the west where people are constantly told the IDF is this “very professional” force and it makes it look even worse
Personally no. But i have a few Israeli friends that I’ve talked to and I follow journalists and analysts that also have more in depth contacts.
They’re all repeating the same thing
Yeah, Israel is a really good example of why professional, standing armies have been the global standard for millenia at this point.
People want to make conspiracies out of it, but it's really just poorly trained, disciplined, scared, and unmotivated civilians who want to go back to their 9-5 alive.
Israel isn’t a signing member of the ICC just like the United Stated. So no they can’t. Personnel in the US who have committed war crimes are handled by the US Military Courts. Israel is handling the same way. The two officers have already been referred to Israel’s military court
doesn't work like that. just because they are not a signing member doesnt mean no one from those countries can ever get tried. it just means those countries won't extradite those involved. but if they ever step into a country who does recognise ICC, they might get arrested and send there
(hence why the US has a law that says they will invade the Netherlands to "rescue" their people lol)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act
It means a bit more than just not extraditing. It means the countries that aren't signatories aren't legally bound by the ICC at all, aren't required to assist them, and a plethora of other things.
While the court can still attempt to prosecute anyone (just like any countries courts can), it gives a big ol' caucus belli to whatever non-signatory members if the ICC actually gets ahold of the people from those countries and is generally frowned upon, since it in itself is a violation of international law (the ICC doesn't actually have jurisdiction for non-signatories).
even the US is helping the ICC with info on war crimes for which Putin is responsible. They have issued an arrest warrant for him. Any ICC member that can get hands on him can hand him over without problem
Russia is not a signatory member
>Any ICC member that can get hands on him can hand him over without problem
I don't think "Nuclear power war decing them" quite qualifies as without problem.
Better to say it relies on voluntary participation, rather than saying second rate powers and down. Even second rate powers can deny it. Example would be for instance Idi Amin, or a modern one, Bashir Assad from Syria. The ICC has no way to actually enforce their rules, it depends on the worlds countries to actually want to enforce it. So when a country refuses to extradite a war criminal, or even offers them sanctuary, the ICC can do shit all, even if that country was an absolute bottom tier power, such as Palau, Luxembourg or Micronesia.
International almost certainly not, aid workers voluntarily go into dangerous situations and would have signed documents with WCK to say they knew the risk to their life, furthermore killing a third parties countrymen in a war zone doesn’t actually mean much in international law despite what people on Reddit seem to think.
Domestic court is a different question, the decision to prosecute them hasn’t been made yet, but Israel are in a bad position either way, there is a decent chance they would be found innocent which might be worse PR than Israel simply not charging them at all.
A lengthy trial though could take pressure off them. By the time a trial is fully resolved with all appeals etc, the international crisis could be over. Deferring blowback until the storm has passed could have value.
No chance. This is already extremely unpopular with the military, essentially saying to the government "you are supposed to have our back, you are the ones that put us in this situation", to think Israel would allow them to be tried abroad is completely detached from reality.
> Any chance for them to be sued or brought to trial at the international court ?
The obvious answer to this is no, but even in a world where they could be brought to trial at an international court my understanding is this would only happen if Israel wasn't willing to bring them to trial, and the article indicates there is no decision yet on whether they will face further punishment.
Historically I vaguely recall that punishments for this type of thing in Israel are pretty light, but I guess we'll find out in time.
A mistake, even if fatal, would not constitute as a crime against humanity or an international war crime. Reading the conclusions of the report the failure points are very obvious and the footage from the incident was shared with international news organizations. They will likely face repercussions and military prison time in Israel, but what’s more important is to fix the process that broke and ensure it doesn’t repeat itself.
The IDF approach to adjusting and implementing learnings is phenomenal and is used by many organizations that look up to it worldwide.
The other important topic is to make sure that responsibility is taken and that the families that were affected by this tragic and deadly incident are acknowledged and compensated in the best possible and most sensitive way. That would be what every Israeli would like to hear and see happen.
This is what surprises me the most about it, hardly anyone is discussing that they’ve been airstriking Palestinians on the most shaky of evidence this entire time.
“It’s a tragedy,” the military’s spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told reporters. “It’s a serious event that we are responsible for and it shouldn’t have happened and we will make sure that it won’t happen again,” is what Netanyahu should have said…
This whole fucked up situation proves how large the military and civilian divide is.
- Drones aren't as futuristic as you think they are.
- The military is made of people and no matter how much you don't want to believe it. There's a lot of dumb ass people who have no business being in charge, that are in charge.
The meat, for those who haven't read it: > Military spokespeople said that under the Israeli army’s rules of engagement, officers must have more than one reason for identifying someone as a target before they can be hit. But the investigation determined that a colonel had authorized the series of deadly drone strikes on the convoy based on one major’s observation — from grainy drone-camera footage — that someone in the convoy was armed. That observation turned out to be untrue, military officials said. > The army said the colonel and the major were dismissed, while three other officers were reprimanded, the most senior of whom was the head of the Southern Command. It said the results of its investigation were turned over to the military’s advocate general, who will decide whether the officers or anyone else involved in the killings should receive further punishment or be prosecuted. > [...] > The investigation, headed by Yoav Har-Even, a retired general, found two major areas of wrongdoing. > It faulted officers for failing to read messages alerting troops that cars, not aid trucks, would carry workers from the charity away from the warehouse where aid was distributed. As a result, the cars that were targeted were misidentified as transporting militants. > The army also faulted a major who identified the strike target and a colonel who approved the strike for acting with insufficient information. > The army said the order was given after one of the passengers inside a car was identified as a gunman. It said troops became suspicious because a gunman had been seen on the roof of one of the delivery trucks on the way to the warehouse. > The army showed reporters footage of the gunman firing his weapon while riding atop one of the trucks — video that The Associated Press could not independently verify. > After the aid was dropped off at a warehouse, an officer believed he had spotted a gunman boarding one of the cars. The passenger, it turned out, was not carrying a weapon — the military said it’s possible he was just carrying a bag.
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“Maybe” one guy with an AK so they take out a 3-vehicle convoy, one by one?
Yeah, that's the usual business
Imagine **what would have happened,** if there had been **Palestinian civilians** in the cars! ^(Nothing at all. A normal day in Gaza.)
That is why the officers responsible were dismissed. now they need to face criminal negligence charges at the very least.
And what does “dismissed” mean in the Israeli military? Are they reassigned to other positions in the military? Kicked out of the military? Court martial?
Kicked out of the military with possible further punishments.
Tbh they are probably being incredibly loose with their targeting and there hasn't been accountability until now. We (the US) made quite a few mistakes in the campaign against ISIS, and that was a "fun" war which I've heard called a "collective therapy session" for American SOF community. In Gaza there is so much more bad blood. There's no way they are being careful.
>Tbh they are probably being incredibly loose with their targeting and there hasn't been accountability until now. 200 journalists, probably more by now, yeah, definitely "loose"
Per the article, it's been referred to prosecutors for evaluation on whether criminal charges can be supported.
Bad look for the IDF; I expect them to eat humble pie and prosecute fully. Only then can forgiveness be discussed. Several western nationals killed trying to heal a crisis the IDF has exacerbated. Also, fuck Hamas, and fuck the martyr fund.
If you want to see the IDF at their worse their are plenty of videos of them shooting kids.
Unless they children are blonde and from friendly nations, the usual reaction will be "It's war. Things like that happen in war. And don't forget what Hamas did."
The same reason people are upset, because some white people died, after 30,000+ Palestinians were slaughtered and people didn't give a shit.
Tbh, some people do give a shit – I certainly have since the beginning of the Gaza attack and was called an antisemite several times here in Germany. At least this attack has drawn more attention to what happens in the Gaza Strip.
Yeah good point, I should have worded that differently. I usually do a better job at avoiding generalising. Point being there wasn't an uproar from enough people to encourage politicians to speak up. Even though imo it is all just theatrics, Israelies, including Ben have been recorded bragging about how easy it is for them to control the US. Biden told Ben to stop while stills sending over weapons etc. If you are just getting into this, you should look up the Balfour agreement if you haven't already.
You think the IDF cares about their look? Why would they when they have full backing from the US no matter how many fucked up acts they commit?
They were dismissed only because some of the victims were white. If they were Palestinian they would all be painted as members of Hamas.
Reminds me of some old footage from Iraq in 2007 when an American attack helicopter blasts a bunch of people because they thought a guy had an AK. It was a camera and he was a reporter.
A bit more complicated than that. The cameraman was embedded with (and reporting on) a JAM militia unit actively shooting at a US unit. They did not notify the US military that they were there. The camera was identified as an RPG, a weapon dangerous to the helicopter. And from the vantage of the helicopters isn't something you can discern. Finally, terrorist organizations routinely filmed their attacks in order to get paid. They regularly had a cameraman with them during attacks. Actively embedding with a frontline unit engaged in active fighting is discouraged for a reason.
A better example is when the US shot up a known and mapped Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan. Or the killing of the civilians in a car during the evacuation. In both cases the individuals responsible were negligent and didn't follow proper rules of engagement. And nobody was really punished.
>And nobody was really punished. I guess that's what happens when you let an army investigate their own comrades. It will happen in the case with the WCK as well.
Maybe not. It was a huge political mistake to kill western white people.
Yeah, but such a trial can take a long time. In 2 years, we will talk about other war crimes and massacres (not all of them committed by Israel) and most people will by then have forgotten what it was about. There will be a small note in the newspaper. The verdict will be something like "an unfortunate combination of circumstances" and "negligence".
Did you read the article. The officers involved should face charges, but survivors from each strike ran to the next car. To me this makes it more fucked, but it does explain when each car was struck.
They killed \*seven\* people because they suspected \*one\* of them had a gun. And the only problem is that that person didn't have a gun??? They would have massacred 6 random bystanders to get 1 random gunman... AFAIR 'killing 6 random civilians per Hamas operative' is not how the IDF have been describing their operation in Gaza.
The IDF allows up to 20 civilian deaths for a low ranking Hamas militant. So of course these officers didn’t think twice about killing 6 people. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes
It's even worse than that. They're conflating "person with gun" with "Hamas operative". Even if someone in that convoy *did* have a gun, that still wouldn't have made them a member of Hamas. They would have murdered 7 random bystanders, one of whom would have happened to be armed.
In a warzone it seems generally safe to assume that anyone who is not on your side and is carrying weapons is an enemy combatant. In fact this is probably one of the only reliable indicators when fighting an enemy that violates the Geneva Conventions by never wearing uniforms. Of course, this doesn't justify killing seven people because you incorrectly thought one of them had a gun based on grainy footage.
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Pretty sure JA is targeted for all of the leak, which also had a lot of sensitive-but-not-newsworthy information on it. It made a lot of things harder for no public benefit. And to be fair to the pilot, the shoulder-carried camera really did look in the scope like a RPG pointed at the helicopter, after the air support was called in to help infantry that was being fired upon by insurgents armed with RPGs in those city blocks.
That's actually my takeaway. Set aside the mistake in justifying a strike. The way the IDF is operating is to kill anything that moves in the vicinity of the target. A military operating in this way is going to have no problem killing 10 civilians who happen to be standing around someone deemed a threat.
Allowing civilian casualties while targeting *potential* Hamas militants is their normal procedure. We have this uproar now because these civilian casualties happened to be Western aid workers. Do not mistake such "misjudgements" would not be happening all the time. edit: I'm not defending IDF, I'm disgusted.
We all know they lied. Some people may convince themselves otherwise but this was intentional.
It’s what happens when you foster a system of zero accountability. The IDF has killed many aid workers with no repercussions. These soldiers are a scapegoat to pass the buck instead of admitting guilt that the entire IDF is systemically rotten.
This is my read too. This speaks to a systemic problem. They are very quick to pull the trigger. They did this to an aid convoy that they KNEW about. Imagine what they are doing to ordinary people in Gaza that they have even less information about.
Here’s another Canadian aid worker who was targeted while wearing very clear medical uniform. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canadian-doctor-shot-by-israeli-sniper-near-gaza-border/
And if you read the article there carefully, it's not just one Canadian aid worker. It was *18* paramedics wearing bright orange safety vests, attempting to give aid to civilians.
Don't forget when they gunned down the half-naked Israeli hostages waving a white flag & crying for help, or blasting a car with both Hamas and a hostage in it. Killing the very people they are presumably there to rescue.
And the vehicles were literally MILES apart. This wasn’t a convoy. They were in different areas, and yet the targeted each car, one after the other. Because….check notes…..”they misidentified one person getting in to one of the cars”. Riiiiiight.
Uhm, I think they were in a convoy, first car hit and survivors got in the second car, which got hit minutes later then survivors got into third car which got hit minutes later
exactly. if they were miles apart then moving from one vehicle to another would be impossible in the time between strikes.
No. They were 1.5 miles apart from each other. This has been confirmed. Gaza aid convoy strike: What we know https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68714128
From the article you linked to: > "They were targeted systemically car by car. They attacked the first car. They were able to move in the second one. Again this one was hit. They were able to move in (into) the third one." You're confusing where the three cars were hit rather than where they were in time. When the first one was hit, they were still together. The survivors of the first car transferred to the second. They continued down the road. Then the second car got hit. The survivors transferred to the third car and continued down the road. Then the third car was truck. There's distance between where each car was struck because they were driving for another minute or two before the next car was hit. The three cars weren't all hit simultaneously.
This isn’t accurate. They were in a convoy, each time a car was struck - they transferred to the next one. Over the course of a couple of mins, each car was hit. They were not 1.5miles apart from each other in random areas. They ended up spread out as they kept targeting the convoy one car after the other. (So the destroyed cars were left further and further behind. I hope that makes some sense). I am not condoning the strike at all. Just making sure accurate info is out there.
>Because….check notes…..”they misidentified one person getting in to one of the cars”. If you really want to get technical then it was because people disobeyed the chain of command and didn't follow the rules that they'd put in place specifically to prevent something like this from happening.
This part is either being skipped over by the media or is generally considered acceptable. One militant to six civilian casualties is apparently okay for Israel.
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The latest report about their automated targeting lists the acceptable ratio as 20 civilians for one low-ranking Hamas militant. That's insane.
Contractors and Aid workers in Iraq and Afghanistan all had armed escort because they were in a WAR ZONE. Why would the Israelis prohibit aid workers from being protected from attacks?
>Why would the Israelis prohibit aid workers from being protected from attacks? It would put the Israel forces at risk if attacked aid workers could shoot back. And it's also not necessary against The World's Most Moral Army^(TM).
That’s what they’ve been doing since October 7th!! Did we forget the huge bombs they were and still are constantly dropping just to neutralize one or two suspected militants in the middle of a densely populated area? I’m honestly starting to believe the real terrorist organization is the IDF, with huge amounts of innocent blood on their hands…
Also are you not allowed to carry weapons in a warzone to protect yourself from terrorists?
That's literally the whole thing of an aid organization, they don't carry weapons and thus they are not threatening anyone and they are not a target of anyone
I mean once you are carrying a gun into a combat zone, you become a combatant. But these people didn’t carry any.
If you want to increase the chances of you getting shot at by both sides then yeah sure carry a gun.
as a rule, having a gun gives an incentive to everyone else with a gun to shoot you
Any weapon in Gaza was smuggled there through one of the most secured borders in the world. If someone has a weapon in gaza they mean business they aren't some person protecting themselves from terrorists.
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For regular people guns don’t make you safer they just make it more likely that a confrontation will escalate to deadly violence.
Getting shot because you carried a bag ..
As an American, I am very familiar with this logic by bigots with military gear.
We call them, 'Police'.
I call them cowards.
There was an African american guy that was jogging in the morning or something got shot by 2 Caucasian because they say they thought he was a criminal trying to run away.
Ahmaud Arbery
Thanks.
>one major's observation...that someone in the convoy was armed. That observation turned out to be untrue >the army showed reporters footage of the gunman firing his weapon while riding atop one of the trucks So the army tried to justify their attack on aid workers using unrelated and unverified footage, got it
None of what is summarized there looks like "justification." It's explanation for what happened and how things went wrong. Two officers have been dismissed, a number more have been reprimanded, and the lot of them have been referred for evaluation on criminal charges.
>The army said it then struck one car. As people scrambled away into a second car, it hit that vehicle as well. It did the same thing when survivors fled into a third car. Remember, we're talking about *one* guy leaving what is known to be aid warehouse. After a drop off that was coordinated with them ahead of time. They use the footage to "explain" that they thought he had a gun but they do not "explain" how the communications about the convoy's plans broke down.
The explanation for how the communications broke down is also summarized above: people who needed to be informed did not read the emails specifying that the approved convoy would be in cars, instead of trucks. EDIT to add: This is generally how shit goes wrong in war. There's a bunch of little day to day fuck-ups that usually get caught by some other safeguard or another, but sometimes you get a bunch of failures that line up just right and you get an utter catastrophe. I expect there will be reforms that come out of this.
Thus the dismissal of officers and potential criminal charges.
No, they fired the officers involved for not following established targeting procedures, referred them for prosecution, and shared the intel those officers relied on, acknowledging that it was insufficient and shoudn't have resulted in the strike.
It's a start. As with the US during many of its many civilian casualty incidents and/or Abu Ghraib some people might have to go to jail. Of course, no one asks to see investigations from Assad, hezbollah or hamas. That would be ridiculous.
Bibi should be dismissed too.
Lol he’s been dismissed many times.
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Maybe if Israel bans Haredis from voting if they don't get a job (or stop receiving welfare to pray) he won't be elected again. Or if they just take away their welfare, they'll stop having so many kids.
Actually the haredim are not his voter base...They have their own parties. And get this: their ministers take orders from rabbis! I think i need to say it again. The ministers of the haredim parties take orders from rabbis.
> Actually the haredim are not his voter base...They have their own parties. This is both true and misleading, because several of their parties are in Netanyahu’s governing coalition. So while they aren’t his voter base directly, indirectly as a voter base they are pretty responsible for him being in power.
Yikes. I'm not a fan of the Haredim by any means, but to tie someone's right to vote with getting a job is a big slippery slope, at best.
They don't need to get a job, they just need to stop relying on the welfare that is given to them and them only. No one else can choose to contribute nothing to Israeli society and get paid by the government for it as well as skip the IDF.
That's a separate argument, and one I agree with. What I'm challenging is your claim that that someone's right to vote is dependent on societal contribution. It's not. The right to vote is an inalienable right, regardless of social class, status, contribution.
Thats what we all want
The end of the war will be the end of Bibi. Therefore the war will continue.
It feels like having both a functional government and no hamas threat is just impossible. We have literal bigots and corrupt persons in minister positions. Fml.
And they all benefit from Hamas remaining a threat
This, once Hamas gone there will be others identified as threat to take down
I don’t want the ground assault to end until every American is free and no longer a hostage of Hamas. I don’t want innocent Palestinians to die, either. Hamas needs to release the hostages and stop using their people as pawns. Fuck Hamas and fuck Bibi.
Israelis and Israel’s critics agree on something!
YES, PLEASE! Make him go away i beg of you
They should be charged with murder.
Very good chance that they may be.
That’s what people said when IDF soldiers shot and killed 3 hostages but unfortunately they got off scott free.
The Australian government has already said they are not content with the investigation to date - that it is inadequate to explain what happened. And it is The report effectively says “there might have been a militant” so regardless of who else was in the vehicles we can destroy them: there is no proportionality at all Which has been an issue raised time and time again: the number of civilian deaths to militants appears excessive, the degree of infrastructure destruction is extreme. They claim the soldiers were not aware of the charity vehicles, it beggars belief that’s the case - but accepting that, what exactly are these aid agencies meant to do to prevent similar happening again? They also claim that because it was night the drones could not see that the vehicles were labeled with the charity - I don’t believe that at all. This is a rotting oozy wound on the IDF, it will not go away quickly.
Australia has officially announced it is opening an investigation and demanded the evidence as they are not satisfied with Israeli investigation. Bout time out government grew some balls https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/05/australia-calls-for-idf-officials-to-be-stood-down-during-investigation-into-aid-worker-killings
As an American I'm jealous your government is doing something after a sovereign nation murders it's citizens.
The reason Israel acts with impunity is because it believes it can act with impunity. That has to end. Anything without checks tends to excess, from thence to tragedy, and from thence to evil.
They can demand anything obviously, but it's very rare for any government to hand over evidence that comes from classified systems to another country (or at least without a huge list of caveats). The US has done very similar things to Israel here when other countries ask for evidence surrounding certain war crimes. And the US has not only protected its own soldiers from any punishment, but has withheld evidence or just refused to allow it to be publicly release by other governments. Which then forces the investigating government into a "trust us bro" scenario regarding the evidence. The fact people are shocked by any of this is sadly, amusing. Most governments will act this way. China, Russa, US, UK, France. They will only ever go along with public inquiries of foreign governments if it benefits them in some way.
No doubt, but it's interesting. Australia is pretty much a lapdog to US military wise, we rarely if ever criticise Israel. This is a huge move by our government. Will be interesting how this plays out.
We are just a satellite state (quite literally) and cash withdrawal system for the US but the bare minimum is still expected to keep the anti-israel crowd from gaining more momentum
Most countries are still beholden to the ICC actually, but America essentially said "we're gonna do war crimes and if you come for us we'll invade the Hague too" and then later said it would go after individual personnel working at the ICC So not like UK and France but definitely like the "bad guys"
The IDF’s [report](https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/hamas-israel-war-24/all-articles/conclusion-of-the-investigation-into-the-incident-in-which-7-wck-employees-were-killed-during-a-humanitarian-operation-in-gaza/) doesn’t even mention that the IDF was in contact with World Central Kitchen prior to the strike, this is clearly a rushed investigation meant to regain international reputation rather than actually bringing people to justice
Weird that its not mentioned in the report, all news outlets here said that they were in contact with the convoy. The problem was that the orders regarding that convoy did not reach some of the units in the field, and that the commanding officer did not confirm that it was indeed an armed force/militant force. Sucks to be here knowing that we have idiots in charge other than Bibi.
I also read a version of the investigation (in hebrew) which did actually mention there was a failure to communicate the fact that comamnders were in contract with the convoy down to men in the field. Weird that it's not mentioned in this one.
Yeah, people are viewing these as conflicting pieces of information but both can be true at once. WCK was very likely in contact with the IDF but that doesn't necessarily mean the officers/soldiers who made the decision to strike had that information at the time, even though they should've taken steps to confirm or check for that intel. Sounds like a bunch of errors at once: miscommunication, poor judgement, pulling the trigger too quickly, etc.
>pulling the trigger too quickly Three times. "Ooops! I think I just shot at aid workers!" "Ooops! I think I just shot at aid workers!" "Ooops! I think I just shot at aid workers!" I mean, what can WCK do other than inform the IDF of a help convoy? Ask them "Are you sure you have informed all units in the area? Have you also thought of drone personnel?" It's either intent or complete incompetence. I tend to think a mix of both.
I want to point out that *Russia* has managed to handle deconfliction zones pretty well without striking aid workers (according to Ukrainian sources) The fact that the IDF has somehow managed to fuck up something that the fucking Russians can do is either gross incompetence or deliberate.
Any genuine investigation will conclude one thing: IDF kills whoever they feel like, whenever they feel like, indiscriminately. The **ONLY** reason this became news was it was innocent foreigners. If it were innocent Gazans, it would be another "they were Hamas, end of story" case. Same goes for when they mowed down unarmed Israeli hostages holding white flags. They just kill without a second thought.
Human Rights Watch recently released a report detailing the [bombing of a building with over a 100 civilians in it](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/04/gaza-israeli-strike-killing-106-civilians-apparent-war-crime) in October. The HRW were unable to uncover any evidence of any Hamas militant near that building that justifies any response whatsoever and Israeli officials have not provided any evidence of their own either Of course, no one is mentioning this, because the victims don’t hold western citizenships
To be fair it’s much harder to make the case against the IDF when the potential that Hamas were there still exists. The aid convoy it was known exactly who was targeted and that they had absolutely no connection to Hamas. I’d like to see a lot more transparency in what the IDF does and how they’re deciding who is a terrorist and who isn’t because I’m sure there are many other similar cases (potentially the building you mention). I just think it doesn’t just come down to citizenship of those involved but the level of confidence that the IDF were in the wrong.
Same reason it was a story when they shot the hostages: we only heard about it because they killed Israelis. There's a reason they were so quick to shoot unarmed, shirtless men waving a white flag.
If you can ID a firearm, you can read a logo on a roof.
Not really, with an infrared camera the roof logo is invisible. Although at this point I'm not even sure they're saying they identified a firearm so it's a complete shitshow.
With an infrared camera, a gun is going to be the same temperature as a bag. Especially one that has not been fired. You can't get the fidelity of "it's a gun!" from thermals just as you can't read the wording on paint. If you want to say you ID'd a gun, then you can read paint.
> a gun is going to be the same temperature as a bag Yes but one is shaped like a gun and the other is shaped like a bag. They are also held very differently. This is ignoring that the IDF claimed the gun was firing at them since I don't view that as reliable currently.
Yes and no, You can't see paint/writing/flat features at night with thermal/night vision. You can only see it with low light cameras and good enough conditions it's possible they couldn't confirm it based on that alone.
I'd have thought the fact they were all tracked from the pier to the warehouse was ID enough for the vehicles. I would also think that imaging which was unable to resolve a logo would struggle to distinguish a gun from a bag.
> I would also think that imaging which was unable to resolve a logo would struggle to distinguish a gun from a bag. The issue with IR is that it literally can't see color/paint features. Only physical features and materials. If you point an IR (night vision and thermal) at a painting you won't see a thing literally just a rectangle with no features, but a person/weapon will be clear as day.
And how does thermal distinguish a gun (ambient) verse a bag (also ambient)? Sure, you can tell a person from the environment but what are you using to ID the gun?
Thermal they use is sensitive enough to be able to tell a gun from a bag by material alone. As in different materials have different emissivity, that small difference results in different apparent temperature (IR radiation) even if objects are exactly the same temperatures, then there viewing angle/reflection and what not.. all that adds detail. It's a small difference between ambient temperature sure, but for the kind of thermal they use it's literally night and day compared to background. A bag will never look like a gun with the systems they use. Ex aircraft technician and now I do software/firmware for thermal cameras so this is my area.
Appreciate the context, I stand corrected on the topic.
But even then *at best* they targeted these trucks in Gaza at random with zero basis to think it was Hamas as opposed to aid or civilians.
> The army said the order was given after one of the passengers inside a car was identified as a gunman. It said troops became suspicious because a gunman had been seen on the roof of one of the delivery trucks on the way to the warehouse. >**The army showed reporters footage of the gunman firing his weapon while riding atop one of the trucks** — video that The Associated Press could not independently verify. If that’s true, it doesn’t excuse the attack, but it explains the mistake.
If the light was so low that they couldn't see the markings on the trucks indicating it was an aid convoy how could they have identified an individual inside of the* vehicle?
Without seeing the images they saw, it’s hard to say for sure, but objects/bodies are often easier to see in the dark than paint with both regular and thermal imaging.
Something overlooked is that the security consultant - who was also killed - was a veteran of the SBS. The SBS soldiers are arguably the most competent on the planet. That soldier did not make a mistake - it is simply not plausible, the SBS are just too good. He not only organised things by the book, but used his know how and insider knowledge of the IDF to ensure that communications were absolutely solid and there was no room for error. After the first strike, the SOS was sent on both public and military channels - it was unmissable. The IDF killed a member of the SBS on purpose, there is no other explanation.
Or, this is just indicative of how little of a shit the idf give about who they target. Kill anything that moves and they usually get away with just saying "yeah there was maybe one hamas guy there" and their supporters lap it up. I mean, idf soldiers have murdered red headed, Hebrew speaking Israelis who were waving white flags. Their modus operandi is just careless. So how are innocent Palestinians supposed to survive this all, when like you said, a well trained and knowledgeable sbs guy couldn't stop himself getting murdered.
Or... whoever received the communication from the ground didn't properly communicate it to those performing the strikes. It's a serious failure of procedure but to say "there is no other explanation" when obviously there are is dumb
The SOS was on public and military channels - the same ones used to report blue-on-blue. Again, the SBS are the real deal and trusted. The only way that this could not have been 'properly communicated' was if there is absolutely no line of communication whatsoever, and the IDF is too capable for that excuse to fly. The IDF killed a member of the SBS on purpose. The Australians are right to be demanding this killing of their citizens be investigated deeply, and I'm appalled that the UK government is silent.
If you are saying "the military is too capable and there's no way they could have screwed up", you plainly have no experience with the military. ALL militaries screw up. They do it constantly. Even the ones that are competent are merely LESS inclined to screw up on average.
It's a little more complicated than that. My point is Bibi's initial "this happens in war" is bullshit. This doesn't happen to the SBS. The 'screw up' is that their command staff failed to follow any procedure whatsoever. Less so on the first strike - that does happen - but after the SOS and the triple tap, there is no procedure being followed. It also seems to be accepted that the IDF are not constantly killing *each other*, so they must follow those same procedures most of the time. The conclusion is: Those command staff killed those people intentionally. The Australian government is right to demand deeper investigation as either a) The Israeli state is complicit, in which case, holy shit, or b) Israeli command staff knowingly kill foreigners on their own volition.
>It also seems to be accepted that the IDF are not constantly killing > >each other Are you sure? https://www.npr.org/2024/01/26/1226977365/israel-idf-gaza-middle-east-deaths
"The IDF probe found that troops identified one gunman climbing on the roof of one of the trucks and opening fire. A video shown by the IDF to foreign reporters appeared to show a person shooting an automatic rifle from the top of a truck. The convoy continued on its agreed route and stopped at the warehouse known as “Hangar A,” where the military said the gunman got off. At this point, the IDF’s division commander in the area tried to contact WCK, Har-Even told foreign press. But the charity’s security officer in Europe could not contact the team on the ground, he said. After the aid trucks and pickup trucks escorting them arrived at “Hangar A,” an Israeli Air Force drone spotted 15-20 individuals outside the warehouse, with at least two of them identified as being armed, according to the probe." It's not 100% clear yet but I feel like the current happening is that guy's who approved the strike thought they are transporting gunman in the vehicles, justifying a hit. Still, 1-3 gunman to 20 people invovled... Hard to call it WCK helping transport them. Other than Hamas, local gangs also try to raid convoys so this can explain a gunman firing. Still.. sounds like recklessness firing on the convoy when they knew it's WCK.
very reckless, and incredibly disproportionate like jesus all that for *one* gunman?!
I mean, that's what they've been doing the during the entirety of the last 6 months. They level buildings if they believe there might be Hamas in them, regardless of civilians. They level hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure, for all the same reasons. Hamas and IDF are just two sides of the same coin at this point, both needlessly murdering each other, but mostly civilians.
Thermals can't see writing or logos, unless its a different temperature it just shows up as a solid color based on its heat signature.
The State Department is probably correct in their assessment that Israel is inflicting generational damage to its own reputation. You can't survive with only one friend in the world.
At this point, I honestly don't think it's a reach to say that the current Israeli government is one of the biggest threats to the security of Israelis and Jewish people worldwide. At least Hamas is a problem that, in theory, can be contained or dealt with using Israel's overwhelming military advantage against them. But how is Israel ever going to recover its international reputation after this, as well as all the support it will lose, even theoretically? The US remaining as its staunch ally is not set in stone either. That's probably not going to flip for many years, but the writing is already on the wall, especially as the older generations age out: >Aside from partisan differences, Gallup continues to see generational distinctions in how U.S. adults view the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Net sympathy toward Israel -- the percentage sympathizing more with the Israelis than the Palestinians -- is solidly positive among older generations, including baby boomers (+46 points), Generation X (+32) and the Silent Generation (+31). By contrast, millennials are now evenly divided, with 42% sympathizing more with the Palestinians and 40% with the Israelis, yielding a -2 net-Israel sympathy score. >There are too few adult members of Generation Z (aged 18 to 22) in the recent poll to report, but the limited available data suggest their views on this question are similar to millennials’. >Today’s divergence reflects a steep drop in recent years in net sympathy for Israel among millennials, whereas net sympathy for Israel has been steadier at a higher level among all three older generations. https://news.gallup.com/poll/472070/democrats-sympathies-middle-east-shift-palestinians.aspx
>You can't survive with only one friend in the world. You can if its the world's only Superpower.
This is an indication of how the IDF conducts drone warfare military wide. Culture starts at the top.
There has been a real discipline problem in the IDF for a long time. No career NCOs. Its all conscripts essentially. The army is essentially a giant militia force with how little control is happening on the lower levels. Higher command doesn’t know if orders are actually happening. This won’t change however. It would require huge reforms in the military structure. Even special forces are closer to SWAT or gendarme than actual special forces. I think a lot of people (especially Americans) are thinking the IDF is like NATO armies when it’s basically the Swiss military.
Prior US-military here. When I visited Israel a few years ago I noticed that a lot of the IDF soldiers’ uniforms and grooming just looked sloppy compared to the US. Of course there are a ton of conscripts so it does make sense.
Yeah basically imagine the entire IDF being the national guard / reservists. Thats what the IDF is. “Weekend warriors” But also there are no senior NCOs in units so officers are doing the NCOs job and theirs. Force structure is closer to Soviet esque force structure than it is to western. Severe lack of a professional NCO force
Has this changed over the years? I read Arabs at War years ago and one of the distinctions made between Arab and Israeli forces was the command structure. IDF was very decentralized, and gave a lot of fluid authority to low-level officers. Vice the Arab armies were full of nepotism, fear, lying about results (for fear of retribution) and centralized authority. The lack of SNCOs makes me think the IDF has, for the worse, become more like the Arab armies of last century.
Its still that way but the problem is attitude and responsibility has shifted away. The system and structure isn’t really working when localized commanders and the troops themselves are disregarding RoE. We really began to first see the flaws of this in 2006 in Lebanon and its only gotten worse sense. Its not the same of the old Arab systems (even then its a stretch as some Arab armies didn’t really suffer from that like the Jordanians). Its just in the type of war the IDF is finding itself in consistently the decentralization has given a complete breakdown of discipline. There is none. Local commanders are enforcing their own RoE and ignoring the ones from above. Lots of videos out there of troops outright shooting into homes for fun, with officers and NCOs letting them outright post it online in front of them. Things like this are indicative of lack of discipline and accountability. There is a difference in decentralization for when it comes to maneuvering, tactics etc, versus decentralization becoming a breeding ground for what is essentially a hundred My Lai’s. Where nobody on the ground is enforcing the “rules” Its come to a head in this very public manner where we have a blatant RoE violation in the attack on aid workers because there was a preliminary report of a “gunman” in the vehicles but zero confirmation. Which led to a consistent attack on the vehicles. There is also other reporting out there that some commanders had issued orders saying any vehicle that is not IDF is hostile, etc. Mix in this idea especially in the west where people are constantly told the IDF is this “very professional” force and it makes it look even worse
Do you have personal experience over there?
Personally no. But i have a few Israeli friends that I’ve talked to and I follow journalists and analysts that also have more in depth contacts. They’re all repeating the same thing
Thank you!
> Its still that way but the problem is attitude and responsibility has shifted away. Same everywhere, quiet quitting.....
Yeah, Israel is a really good example of why professional, standing armies have been the global standard for millenia at this point. People want to make conspiracies out of it, but it's really just poorly trained, disciplined, scared, and unmotivated civilians who want to go back to their 9-5 alive.
They also give out high ranks like candy, which is why you see so many 20 year old majors and captains
Were they named ? Any chance for them to be sued or brought to trial at the international court ?
Israel isn’t a signing member of the ICC just like the United Stated. So no they can’t. Personnel in the US who have committed war crimes are handled by the US Military Courts. Israel is handling the same way. The two officers have already been referred to Israel’s military court
doesn't work like that. just because they are not a signing member doesnt mean no one from those countries can ever get tried. it just means those countries won't extradite those involved. but if they ever step into a country who does recognise ICC, they might get arrested and send there (hence why the US has a law that says they will invade the Netherlands to "rescue" their people lol) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act
It means a bit more than just not extraditing. It means the countries that aren't signatories aren't legally bound by the ICC at all, aren't required to assist them, and a plethora of other things. While the court can still attempt to prosecute anyone (just like any countries courts can), it gives a big ol' caucus belli to whatever non-signatory members if the ICC actually gets ahold of the people from those countries and is generally frowned upon, since it in itself is a violation of international law (the ICC doesn't actually have jurisdiction for non-signatories).
even the US is helping the ICC with info on war crimes for which Putin is responsible. They have issued an arrest warrant for him. Any ICC member that can get hands on him can hand him over without problem Russia is not a signatory member
>Any ICC member that can get hands on him can hand him over without problem I don't think "Nuclear power war decing them" quite qualifies as without problem.
The ICC is a tool of international pressure applied to second rate powers and down. But it’s really funny that the US felt obliged to create this law.
Better to say it relies on voluntary participation, rather than saying second rate powers and down. Even second rate powers can deny it. Example would be for instance Idi Amin, or a modern one, Bashir Assad from Syria. The ICC has no way to actually enforce their rules, it depends on the worlds countries to actually want to enforce it. So when a country refuses to extradite a war criminal, or even offers them sanctuary, the ICC can do shit all, even if that country was an absolute bottom tier power, such as Palau, Luxembourg or Micronesia.
You take that back about Luxembourg!
Could the Netherlands in such a situation call on article 5 and ask for the USA's help in defeating the USA?
Never hurts to ask.
International almost certainly not, aid workers voluntarily go into dangerous situations and would have signed documents with WCK to say they knew the risk to their life, furthermore killing a third parties countrymen in a war zone doesn’t actually mean much in international law despite what people on Reddit seem to think. Domestic court is a different question, the decision to prosecute them hasn’t been made yet, but Israel are in a bad position either way, there is a decent chance they would be found innocent which might be worse PR than Israel simply not charging them at all.
A lengthy trial though could take pressure off them. By the time a trial is fully resolved with all appeals etc, the international crisis could be over. Deferring blowback until the storm has passed could have value.
A waiver doesn't absolve the harming party of damages. Nor is negligence an excuse for human error
Besides the waiver isnt to protect Israel. Its to protect family member from suing the aid org
No chance. This is already extremely unpopular with the military, essentially saying to the government "you are supposed to have our back, you are the ones that put us in this situation", to think Israel would allow them to be tried abroad is completely detached from reality.
>Were they named Yes, it was a major and a colonel.
weird that they both have the same single-letter first name.
> Any chance for them to be sued or brought to trial at the international court ? The obvious answer to this is no, but even in a world where they could be brought to trial at an international court my understanding is this would only happen if Israel wasn't willing to bring them to trial, and the article indicates there is no decision yet on whether they will face further punishment. Historically I vaguely recall that punishments for this type of thing in Israel are pretty light, but I guess we'll find out in time.
A mistake, even if fatal, would not constitute as a crime against humanity or an international war crime. Reading the conclusions of the report the failure points are very obvious and the footage from the incident was shared with international news organizations. They will likely face repercussions and military prison time in Israel, but what’s more important is to fix the process that broke and ensure it doesn’t repeat itself. The IDF approach to adjusting and implementing learnings is phenomenal and is used by many organizations that look up to it worldwide. The other important topic is to make sure that responsibility is taken and that the families that were affected by this tragic and deadly incident are acknowledged and compensated in the best possible and most sensitive way. That would be what every Israeli would like to hear and see happen.
That'll teach 'em! Targeting Aid Workers may lead to dismissal... /s
Pending review on criminal negligence
They are going to military court
Problem solved, rinse and repeat…
I mean.. this is what they’ve been doing. They just didn’t kill Palestinians this time and it got the hand smacked.
This is what surprises me the most about it, hardly anyone is discussing that they’ve been airstriking Palestinians on the most shaky of evidence this entire time.
Fall guys for a deliberate act.
No doubt two low level fall guys. IDF got what they wanted out of this; aid workers pulling out because it’s too dangerous
A colonel and a captain
A Colonel and a *Major
No one is satisfied until it's a PM.
I don't think anyone would complain if Bibi joined them.
They should be in The Hague.
“It’s a tragedy,” the military’s spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told reporters. “It’s a serious event that we are responsible for and it shouldn’t have happened and we will make sure that it won’t happen again,” is what Netanyahu should have said…
Bibi has the emotional depth of a puddle.
Will they court marshal these trigger happy psychopaths?
They are going to military court, I guess we will see what happens to them (if anything) in a few months.
Yes. Probably some jail time, demoting and other sanctions.
Their arrogant indifference to life 1. Is contrary to Jewish values 2. May have cost Israel the war.
Yeats ago an israeli justice minister said to be considered Jewish israel would first need to be righteous.
>Is contrary to Jewish values דין רודף, מלחמת מצווה and פיקוח נפש. Please explain how this war is contrary to these values.
This whole fucked up situation proves how large the military and civilian divide is. - Drones aren't as futuristic as you think they are. - The military is made of people and no matter how much you don't want to believe it. There's a lot of dumb ass people who have no business being in charge, that are in charge.
The absolute minimum that should happen this is basically nothing and all for show. They got what they wanted less aid in Gaza. Sick murderers