Contact Us

Israel ‘undecided’ on criminal investigation over death of Gaza aid workers

Anadolu Agency WORLD
Published April 08,2024
Subscribe

Israel has not decided yet on launching a criminal investigation into last week's killing of seven aid workers in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip, according to local media on Monday.

The aid workers with US-based aid charity World Central Kitchen were killed on April 1 when their convoy was hit shortly after they oversaw the unloading of 100 tons of food aid brought to Gaza by sea.

They were nationals of Australia, Poland, the UK and Palestine as well as a US-Canadian dual citizen.

The Israeli army said that its inquiry into the incident had found serious errors and breaches of procedure by its military. It dismissed two officers involved in the deadly attack and reprimanded three others.

"The military prosecution has not yet decided whether to launch a criminal investigation against those involved" in the strike, the Israeli public broadcaster KAN said.

"The security establishment tends to allow the involvement of independent external parties from international organizations in investigating the incident," it added.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack early last October by the Palestinian group Hamas which killed around 1,200 people.

Nearly 33,200 Palestinians have since been killed and almost 75,900 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in an interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.