Posted on 04/05/24
| News Source: Arutz-7
The IDF on Friday afternoon released the results of an investigation into an airstrike earlier this week that left seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) employees dead.
The investigation was conducted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), led by MG (res.) Yoav Har-Even, was presented Thursday to the IDF Chief of the General Staff, LTG Herzi Halevi.
After presenting the findings of the investigation to the Chief of the General Staff, MG (res.) Har-Even presented them to the WCK organization and reiterated the IDF’s deep sorrow about the incident. The findings were also presented in briefings to international ambassadors and journalists.
The event occurred on April 1, 2024, during an operation to transfer humanitarian aid from the WCK to the Gaza Strip. The investigation found that the forces identified a gunman on one of the aid trucks, following which they identified an additional gunman.
After the vehicles left the warehouse where the aid had been unloaded, one of the commanders mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles and that these were Hamas terrorists. The forces did not identify the vehicles in question as being associated with WCK.
Following a misidentification by the forces, the forces targeted the three WCK vehicles based on the misclassification of the event and misidentification of the vehicles as having Hamas operatives inside them, with the resulting strike leading to the deaths of seven innocent humanitarian aid workers.
"The strikes on the three vehicles were carried out in serious violation of the commands and IDF Standard Operating Procedures," the IDF stressed.