The strike on the aid convoy, which travelled along a route approved by the Israeli army, killed seven workers of the World Central Kitchen – but the target, an armed man thought to be a terrorist, never left the warehouse with the cars.
The Israeli strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in the Gaza Strip on Monday night was launched because of suspicion that a terrorist was travelling with the convoy.
An Israeli drone fired three missiles one after the other at a World Central Kitchen aid convoy, that left Monday night to escort an aid truck to a food warehouse in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, according to defense sources familiar with the details.
According to the defense sources, the cars were clearly marked on the roof and sides as belonging to the organization, but the war room of the unit responsible for security of the route that the convoy travelled identified an armed man on the truck and suspected that he was a terrorist.
Until the actions that preceded the strike, carried out by a Hermes 450 drone, were completed, the truck reached the warehouse with the World Central Kitchen's three cars, with seven volunteers in them – two dual-national Palestinians (U.S. and Canada) and five citizens of Australia, the UK, and Poland.
A few minutes later, the three cars left the warehouse without the truck, on which the ostensibly armed man was located. According to the defense sources, that armed man did not leave the warehouse. The cars travelled along a route preapproved and coordinated with the IDF.
At some point, when the convoy was driving along the approved route, the war room of the unit responsible for security of the route ordered the drone operators to attack one of the cars with a missile.
Some of the passengers were seen leaving the car after it was hit and switching to one of the other two cars. They continued to drive and even notified the people responsible that they were attacked, but, seconds later, another missile hit their car.
The third car in the convoy approached, and the passengers began to transfer to it the wounded who had survived the second strike – in order to get them out of danger. But then a third missile struck them. All seven World Central Kitchen volunteers were killed in the strike.
On Tuesday morning, World Central Kitchen executives announced a temporary halt to its operations in Gaza, and that the ship that had departed to Gaza with aid shipments would return to Cyprus.
"It's frustrating," one of the defense sources told Haaretz. "We're trying our hardest to accurately hit terrorists, and utilizing every thread of intelligence, and in the end the units in the field decide to launch attacks without any preparation, in cases that have nothing to do with protecting our forces."
The IDF understands that this is a serious incident that is liable to have far-reaching effects on the continued combat in Gaza, because of deteriorating international legitimacy in recent weeks. The defense establishment is preparing to send representatives to the dead volunteers' countries, to personally present to senior government officials the findings of the investigation that the army announced on Monday night.
The strike is not the first incident in which World Central Kitchen staff were wounded in Gaza. On Saturday, an IDF sniper fired at a car headed to a food warehouse in the Khan Yunis area. He hit the car's windshield, but the volunteer inside was unharmed.
The World Central Kitchen immediately filed a complaint with the IDF after the incident, and demanded the army stop the fire toward its staff, and guarantee their safety when distributing food in the Gaza Strip, which is carried out with full coordination. The IDF did not comment on the organization's inquiry about that incident.
IDF Spokesman rear adm. Daniel Hagari has spoken of the incident on Tuesday, expressing his "sincere sorrow," saying that "as a professional military committed to international law", The IDF is committed to examining its operations "thoroughly and transparently," he said, speaking to foreign press.
Hagari further said he has spoken to WCK founder, Chef Jose Andres, and expressed the IDF's "deepest condolences."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented on the event and said that the incident was a "tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip. This happens in war, and we will investigate it to the end. We are in contact with the governments involved, and we will do everything to insure that this does not happen again."
According to Deir al-Balah residents, who were in the area when the convoy was hit, the attack happened near the temporary pier set up to unload goods that reach Gaza by sea, like the shipments organized by WCK from Cyprus.
Some of the residents were skeptical about the army's stance that the event was a mistake and would be investigated, as the cars in the convoy were clearly identified as belonging to the humanitarian organization.