Middle East crisis live: Israel military sacks two senior officers over killing of aid workers and says strikes were ‘a tragedy’

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Israel military sacks two senior officers over killing of aid workers and says strikes were a tragedy

The Israeli military said on Friday that it has dismissed two officers and reprimanded three others for their roles in drone strikes in Gaza that killed seven aid workers on a food-delivery mission, saying they had mishandled critical information and violated the army’s rules of engagement.

The findings of a retired general’s investigation into the Monday killings marked an embarrassing admission by Israel, which faces growing accusations from key allies, including the US, of not doing enough to protect Gaza’s civilians from its war with Hamas, AP reports.

The findings are likely to renew scepticism over the Israeli military’s decision-making. Palestinians, aid groups and human rights organisations have repeatedly accused Israeli forces of firing recklessly at civilians throughout the conflict — a charge Israel denies.

“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.”

With pressure mounting on Israel to hold itself accountable, Hagari and other officials late Thursday shared with reporters the results of the military’s uncommonly speedy and detailed investigation.

It was unclear whether the punishments and the apology would calm an international outcry over the deaths of the World Central Kitchen workers or reassure international aid groups that it was safe to resume operations in Gaza, where nearly a third of the population is on the brink of starvation.

According to what spokespeople said were the Israeli army’s rules, targets must be visually identified as threats for multiple reasons 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. 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.

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The World Central Kitchen (WCK) on Friday said the IDF deployed deadly force without regard to its own protocols, chain of command and rules of engagement, and has called for an independent commission to investigate the killing of 7 aid workers.

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The Israeli military said that it has dismissed two officers and reprimanded three others for their roles in drone strikes in Gaza that killed seven aid workers on a food-delivery mission, saying they had mishandled critical information and violated the army’s rules of engagement.

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“Without systemic change, there will be more military failures, more apologies and more grieving families,” WCK said, calling the IDF’s disciplinary action against those involved and accepting responsibility as important steps forward.

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“We demand the creation of an independent commission to investigate the killings of our WCK colleagues. The IDF cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

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WCK said the IDF acknowledged the organisations’ teams followed proper communications procedures, and said the IDF’s video footage “fails to show any cause to fire on our personnel convoy, which carried no weapons and posed no threat.”

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view of the aid center of International food charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) in Nuseirat Camp, Gaza.","caption":"A view of the aid center of International food charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) in Nuseirat Camp, Gaza.","credit":"Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images"}},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"

The investigation into Monday’s killings found officers failed 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.

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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.

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The aid workers were three British citizens, a Polish citizen, an Australian and a Canadian American dual citizen. Their Palestinian driver also was killed.

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WCK founder José Andrés said:

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\n

It’s not enough to simply try to avoid further humanitarian deaths, which have now approached close to 200. All civilians need to be protected, and all innocent people in Gaza need to be fed and safe. And all hostages must be released.

\n

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Welcome to our latest live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and wider Middle East crisis. Here’s a snapshot of all the key developments so far.

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Israel has approved the reopening of the Erez crossing into northern Gaza and the temporary use of Israel’s Ashdod port to increase humanitarian aid supplies into Gaza, a statement from the prime minister’s office said early on Friday.

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It also approved expanded entry of aid from Jordan through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

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The US secretary of state Antony Blinken has welcomed the steps announced by Israel on humanitarian aid to Gaza, but said “the real test is results”.

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In other developments:

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Since 7 October, 33,091 Palestinians have been killed and 75,750 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry on Friday. It was not possible to independently verify the figures.

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip. Twenty-eight countries voted in favour, 13 abstained and six voted against the resolution.

Iran held a funeral on Friday for seven officers killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Syria this week, an unprecedented attack for which Tehran has vowed to take revenge.

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The findings of an investigation into the aid worker killings may come in “the next few days”, an Israeli spokesperson suggested to the BBC, after officials signalled earlier that it could take weeks. WCK has called for an “independent, third-party investigation” into the Israeli strikes and asked Australia, Canada, Poland, the US and the UK – whose citizens were killed – to join them in demanding the inquiry.

A fourth former supreme court justice has put his name to a letter warning the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, that the UK is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel, as the number of legal experts signing the letter rose to more than 750. Lord Carnwath joins Lady Hale, who was president of the UK’s highest court, and lords Sumption and Wilson in urging ministers to act to prevent the “plausible risk” of genocide in Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also said it again attacked what it described as “terrorist infrastructure” in Lebanon. It identified launches “crossing from Lebanon toward the areas of Betzet and Shlomi in northern Israel” and struck the sources of the fire, it said. As well, “IDF fighter jets struck terrorist infrastructure in the areas of Yaroun, Aynata, and Maroun El Ras”.

US forces destroyed an anti-ship missile in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen on Thursday, US central command said on Friday, adding there were no injuries or damage reported by US, coalition or commercial ships.

Israeli media reported a step up in GPS jamming inside the country, believed to be a preparation for a potential attack from Iran, which has vowed revenge after an airstrike on its consulate in Damascus killed several senior military commanders.

Former US president Donald Trump urged Israel in its war with Hamas to “get it over with fast”. In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump said Israel was “absolutely losing the PR war” and called for a swift resolution to the bloodshed. “Let’s get back to peace and stop killing people.”

A political row has developed in Israel over plans to allow members of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community, the Haredim, to be conscripted, ending a longstanding religious exemption from military service. Supporters of both sides of the argument are threatening to walk out of Netanyahu’s wartime national coalition if they do not get their way.

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The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip.

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Twenty-eight countries voted in favour, 13 abstained and six voted against the resolution.

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#HRC55 | Draft resolution A/HRC/55/L.30 on the Human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the obligation to ensure accountability and justice was ADOPTED. pic.twitter.com/URttz9IFjv

— United Nations Human Rights Council | #HRC55 (@UN_HRC) April 5, 2024

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The resolution stressed “the need to ensure accountability for all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in order to end impunity”.

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It also expressed “grave concern at reports of serious human rights violations and grave breaches of international humanitarian law, including of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

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Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, accused the Council of having “long abandoned the Israeli people and long defended Hamas”.

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“According to the resolution before you today, Israel has no right to protect its people, while Hamas has every right to murder and torture innocent Israelis,” she said ahead of the vote. “A vote ‘Yes’ is a vote for Hamas.”

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The United States had pledged to vote against the resolution because it did not contain a specific condemnation of Hamas for the Oct. 7 attacks, nor “any reference to the terrorist nature of those actions”.

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It did, however, said that its ally Israel had not done enough to mitigate harm to civilians.

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“The United States has repeatedly urged Israel to de-conflict military operations against Hamas with humanitarian operations, in order to avoid civilian casualties and to ensure humanitarian actors can carry out their essential mission in safety,” said Michèle Taylor, U.S. permanent representative to the Council.

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“That has not happened and, in just six months, more humanitarians have been killed in this conflict than in any war of the modern era.”

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The U.N. Human Rights Council, which meets several times a year, is the only intergovernmental body designed to protect human rights worldwide. It can increase scrutiny of countries’ human rights records and authorise investigations.

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The US secretary of state Antony Blinken has welcomed the steps announced by Israel on humanitarian aid to Gaza, but said “the real test is results”.

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The statements come after Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said his security cabinet has approved a series of steps to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, including the temporary reopening of a key crossing that was destroyed in the 7 October Hamas attack.

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The announcement was made hours after a warning from US president Joe Biden that future US support for Israel would depend on it taking concrete action to protect civilians and aid workers.

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Blinken also said the US will look at the number of trucks entering and getting around Gaza, and will also look at indictators of potential famine to see if they reverse, according to Reuters.

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“These are positive developments but the real test is results,” Blinken said.

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Since 7 October, 33,091 Palestinians have been killed and 75,750 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry on Friday.

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The UN Human Rights Council was on Friday debating whether to demand a halt in arms sales to Israel, whose war in Gaza has killed more than 33,000 people, mostly civilians.

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The draft text calls on countries to “cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel”. This, it said, is needed among other things “to prevent further violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of human rights”.

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It stresses that the International Court of Justice ruled in January “that there is a plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza, AFP reports.

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session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva","caption":"55th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva
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If the text is adopted, it would mark the first time that the United Nations’ top rights body has taken a position on the bloodiest-ever war to beset the besieged Palestinian territory.

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Friday’s draft resolution, which was brought forward by Pakistan on behalf of all Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states except Albania, calls for “an immediate ceasefire” and “for immediate emergency humanitarian access and assistance”.

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It comes after the UN Security Council in New York last week also finally passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire – thanks to an abstention from Washington, Israel’s closest ally and largest arms supplier.

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The rights council draft resolution does not name Hamas but it does condemn the firing of rockets at Israeli civilian areas and demands “the immediate release of all remaining hostages”.

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It demands that Israel end its occupation of all Palestinian territories and “immediately lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip and all other forms of collective punishment”.

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The text, which was revised late on Thursday removing several references to genocide, continues to express “grave concern at statements by Israeli officials amounting to incitement to genocide”. And it urges countries to “prevent the continued forcible transfer of Palestinians within and from Gaza”.

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It warns in particular “against any large-scale military operations in the city of Rafah” in the south of the densely populated Gaza Strip, where well over one million civilians are sheltering, warning of “devastating humanitarian consequences”.

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The draft resolution also condemns “the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in Gaza”, where the UN has warned that famine is looming.

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Israel announced on Friday that it would allow “temporary” aid deliveries into famine-threatened northern Gaza, hours after the United States warned of a sharp shift in its policy over Israel’s war against Hamas militants.

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In a tense, 30-minute phone call on Thursday, US President Joe Biden told prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that US policy on Israel was dependent on the protection of civilians and aid workers in Gaza, the first hint of possible conditions to Washington’s military support.

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Just hours later, in the middle of the night in Jerusalem, Israel announced it would open more aid routes into the coastal Palestinian territory which Israel placed under siege at the start of the war nearly six months ago.

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“Israel will allow the temporary delivery of humanitarian aid” through the Ashdod Port and the Erez land crossing, as well as increased deliveries from neighbouring Jordan at the Kerem Shalom crossing, Netanyahu’s office said.

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The White House quickly welcomed the moves – saying they came “at the president’s request” – and said they “must now be fully and rapidly implemented”.

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Welcome to our latest live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and wider Middle East crisis. Here’s a snapshot of all the key developments.

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It also approved expanded entry of aid from Jordan through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

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The Israeli move was announced shortly after a warning to Benjamin Netanyahu from the US president, Joe Biden, and as international pressure mounts on Israel after it took responsibility for a strike that killed seven workers with the World Central Kitchen (WCK) food charity.

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In a tense call with Netanyahu on Thursday, Biden called for an “immediate ceasefire” and made clear that US policy would be determined by Israel taking “concrete and measurable steps” to address civilian harm and humanitarian suffering, according to the White House.

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Right after Israel’s announcement, the White House welcomed the moves to “increase aid flow to Gaza” and called for them to be “fully and rapidly implemented”.

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In other developments:

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At least 33,037 Palestinians have been killed and 75,668 injured in the Israeli offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the territory’s health ministry said. The Hamas-led ministry said on Thursday about 62 Palestinians were killed and 91 injured over the past 24 hours. It was not possible to independently verify the figures.

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The findings of an investigation into the aid worker killings may come in “the next few days”, an Israeli spokesperson suggested to the BBC, after officials signalled earlier that it could take weeks. WCK has called for an “independent, third-party investigation” into the Israeli strikes and asked Australia, Canada, Poland, the US and the UK – whose citizens were killed – to join them in demanding the inquiry.

A fourth former supreme court justice has put his name to a letter warning the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, that the UK is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel, as the number of legal experts signing the letter rose to more than 750. Lord Carnwath joins Lady Hale, who was president of the UK’s highest court, and lords Sumption and Wilson in urging ministers to act to prevent the “plausible risk” of genocide in Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also said it again attacked what it described as “terrorist infrastructure” in Lebanon. It identified launches “crossing from Lebanon toward the areas of Betzet and Shlomi in northern Israel” and struck the sources of the fire, it said. As well, “IDF fighter jets struck terrorist infrastructure in the areas of Yaroun, Aynata, and Maroun El Ras”.

US forces destroyed an anti-ship missile in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen on Thursday, US central command said on Friday, adding there were no injuries or damage reported by US, coalition or commercial ships.

Israeli media reported a step up in GPS jamming inside the country, believed to be a preparation for a potential attack from Iran, which has vowed revenge after an airstrike on its consulate in Damascus killed several senior military commanders.

Former US president Donald Trump urged Israel in its war with Hamas to “get it over with fast”. In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump said Israel was “absolutely losing the PR war” and called for a swift resolution to the bloodshed. “Let’s get back to peace and stop killing people.”

A political row has developed in Israel over plans to allow members of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community, the Haredim, to be conscripted, ending a longstanding religious exemption from military service. Supporters of both sides of the argument are threatening to walk out of Netanyahu’s wartime national coalition if they do not get their way.

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World Central Kitchen says without ‘systemic change’ there will be more military failures

“We demand the creation of an independent commission to investigate the killings of our WCK colleagues. The IDF cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

A view of the aid center of International food charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) in Nuseirat Camp, Gaza. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

The aid workers were three British citizens, a Polish citizen, an Australian and a Canadian American dual citizen. Their Palestinian driver also was killed.

WCK founder José Andrés said:

It’s not enough to simply try to avoid further humanitarian deaths, which have now approached close to 200. All civilians need to be protected, and all innocent people in Gaza need to be fed and safe. And all hostages must be released.

José Andrés: the chef behind Gaza food aid charity who ‘moves towards disaster’ to help the hungry

When José Andrés accepted the challenge of delivering food aid to a famine-threatened Gaza last month, he declared – without a trace of overstatement – that he was “working with the urgency of now”.

“It’s worth trying. We have to try. If we succeed, everybody is helped,” the celebrity chef turned aid supremo said of his plan to use his non-profit World Central Kitchen (WCK) to help avert the looming humanitarian disaster.

On display was the same irrepressible can-do spirit that had enabled the Spanish-born Andrés, now a US citizen, to bring food relief to citizens stricken by natural disaster or war in numerous far-flung locations, from Haiti to Ukraine.

Celebrity chef Jose Andres, whose work has been focused on his Work Central Kitchen, an NGO devoted to providing meals in wake of natural disasters and other emergencies. Photograph: Hector Emanuel/The Guardian

The killing of the aid workers, all of whom worked for World Central Kitchen, were condemned by Israel’s closest allies and renewed criticism of Israel’s conduct in the nearly 6-month-old war with Hamas.

The aid workers were three British citizens, a Polish citizen, an Australian and a Canadian American dual citizen. Their Palestinian driver also was killed.

The investigation into Monday’s killings 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.

After the aid was dropped off at a warehouse, an officer believed he had spotted a gunman in one of the cars. The passenger, it turned out, was not carrying a weapon – the military said its possible he was just carrying a bag.

The army said it initially hit one car. As people scrambled away into a second car, it hit that vehicle as well. It did the same thing when survivors scrambled into a third car. Army officials claimed that drone operators could not see that the cars were marked with the words “World Central Kitchen” because it was nighttime.

The army could not say exactly where the communication about the convoy’s plans had broken down.

The army declined to answer questions about whether similar violations of rules of engagement have taken place during the war – in which Palestinians, aid workers and international rights groups have repeatedly accused the army of recklessly striking civilians.

The investigation was headed by Yoav Har-Even, a retired general.

The seven who were killed were distributing food that had been brought into Gaza through a newly established maritime corridor. World Central Kitchen said it had coordinated its movements with the military, and that the vehicles were marked with the organization’s logo.

“It was a direct attack on clearly marked vehicles whose movements were known by” the Israeli military, Andrés said on Wednesday.

More than 220 humanitarian workers have been killed in the conflict, according to the U.N.

“Let’s be very clear. This is tragic, but it is not an anomaly,” Scott Paul, of the humanitarian group Oxfam, said Thursday in a briefing with other relief organizations before the results of Israel’s investigation were released. “The killing of aid workers in Gaza has been systemic.”

Israel military sacks two senior officers over killing of aid workers and says strikes were a tragedy

Turkish authorities, who have denounced Israel for its war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, have arrested two people suspected of spying for Israeli intelligence, interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Friday.

Since January, Turkish authorities have detained or arrested and charged dozens of people suspected of having ties to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, Reuters reports. Six people were charged last month.

Turkish and Israeli leaders have traded public barbs since Israel’s war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas began in October. Turkey has warned Israel of “serious consequences” if it tries to hunt down Hamas members living outside the Palestinian territories, including in Turkey.

In a post on social media platform X, Yerlikaya said police had detained eight people believed to be collecting and selling information to Mossad about targeted individuals and companies in Turkey. Of those, two had been arrested and six released on parole, he said.

“We will never allow espionage activities that are carried out within our country’s borders against our people’s national unity and solidarity. We are in pursuit,” he said.
A Turkish security official said the raids, carried out in Istanbul, targeted a Turkish private detective and his wife, who were believed to have been involved with Mossad from 2011-2020.

The official said the detective had previously met Mossad members in Austria, Switzerland and Germany and used private communication channels to keep in touch with them.

The detective “earned significant income” from this and formed a network of nine people, the official said. Members of the network had confessed and the detective and his wife had been arrested, the person added.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

A Turkish court in January ordered the arrest of 15 people and the deportation of eight suspected of having links to Mossad and targeting Palestinians living in Turkey.

Poland’s deputy foreign minister said on Friday that the Israeli ambassador to Poland apologised after an Israeli air strike killed a Polish aid worker in Gaza this week.
Israeli ambassador Yacov Livne would not be expelled from Poland, the deputy Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna said.

On Friday a German foreign ministry spokesperson said attacks that killed seven food aid workers of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity group in Gaza “cast a bad light on the conduct of the Israeli army”.

Summary

Welcome to our latest live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and wider Middle East crisis. Here’s a snapshot of all the key developments so far.

It also approved expanded entry of aid from Jordan through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

The US secretary of state Antony Blinken has welcomed the steps announced by Israel on humanitarian aid to Gaza, but said “the real test is results”.

In other developments:

Since 7 October, 33,091 Palestinians have been killed and 75,750 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry on Friday. It was not possible to independently verify the figures.
The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip. Twenty-eight countries voted in favour, 13 abstained and six voted against the resolution.
Iran held a funeral on Friday for seven officers killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Syria this week, an unprecedented attack for which Tehran has vowed to take revenge.

Palestinians in Gaza queue for hot food
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

The findings of an investigation into the aid worker killings may come in “the next few days”, an Israeli spokesperson suggested to the BBC, after officials signalled earlier that it could take weeks. WCK has called for an “independent, third-party investigation” into the Israeli strikes and asked Australia, Canada, Poland, the US and the UK – whose citizens were killed – to join them in demanding the inquiry.
A fourth former supreme court justice has put his name to a letter warning the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, that the UK is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel, as the number of legal experts signing the letter rose to more than 750. Lord Carnwath joins Lady Hale, who was president of the UK’s highest court, and lords Sumption and Wilson in urging ministers to act to prevent the “plausible risk” of genocide in Gaza.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also said it again attacked what it described as “terrorist infrastructure” in Lebanon. It identified launches “crossing from Lebanon toward the areas of Betzet and Shlomi in northern Israel” and struck the sources of the fire, it said. As well, “IDF fighter jets struck terrorist infrastructure in the areas of Yaroun, Aynata, and Maroun El Ras”.
US forces destroyed an anti-ship missile in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen on Thursday, US central command said on Friday, adding there were no injuries or damage reported by US, coalition or commercial ships.
Israeli media reported a step up in GPS jamming inside the country, believed to be a preparation for a potential attack from Iran, which has vowed revenge after an airstrike on its consulate in Damascus killed several senior military commanders.
Former US president Donald Trump urged Israel in its war with Hamas to “get it over with fast”. In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump said Israel was “absolutely losing the PR war” and called for a swift resolution to the bloodshed. “Let’s get back to peace and stop killing people.”
A political row has developed in Israel over plans to allow members of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community, the Haredim, to be conscripted, ending a longstanding religious exemption from military service. Supporters of both sides of the argument are threatening to walk out of Netanyahu’s wartime national coalition if they do not get their way.

Here are the latest images coming across the wires from Gaza:

Palestinians in Gaza queue for hot food. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

An Israeli military vehicle operates near the Israel-Gaza border. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

A Palestinian youth inspects a damaged apartment following overnight Israeli bombardment in Rafah. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

Patrick Wintour

It is devastating that it took six months and the killing of six western aid workers for a tipping point to be reached for Israel to change course over the supply of international humanitarian aid, the chair of the UK foreign affairs committee has said.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Alicia Kearns said the government must suspend arms sales to Israel and claimed ministers were no longer saying that Israel was complying with international humanitarian law, merely that it had the capacity to do so.

“I believe we have no choice but to suspend arms sales and it is important that the public understands this is not a political decision as some people want to present it as,” she said.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, has said Israeli air strikes have turned southern Lebanon into a “devastated agricultural area”.

Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah have been trading fire across Israel’s northern border since war erupted in Gaza, with Hezbollah firing rockets and Israel launching air strikes and artillery shells.

The Israeli strikes have burned tens of thousands of olive trees and torched farmland across southern Lebanon, hurting herders and farmers already suffering from a deep economic crisis that has made it even more important for Lebanon to produce its own food.

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati heads a cabinet meeting in Beirut. Photograph: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters

“Eight hundred hectares have been completely damaged, 340,000 heads of livestock have died, and about 75% of farmers have lost their final source of income,” Lebanon’s National News Agency quoted Mikati as saying.

“This problem will extend to the coming years.”

Agriculture Minister Abbas Hajj Hassan sounded the alarm last month, saying the Israeli strikes were preventing farmers in villages and towns near the border reaching their fields, affecting up to 30% of Lebanon’s agricultural output.

The Guardian

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