Israel’s failure to hold its fire on aid groups

New York Times

They are humanitarian groups from Western countries, including some of Israel’s strongest allies. They have a direct line to the Israeli military. And they routinely provide the military with their locations and movements. Yet their aid operations in the Gaza Strip have repeatedly come under Israeli fire, often with deadly consequences.

Aid agencies condemn a breakdown in a system called deconfliction, a wartime safety system used around the world to help combatants compile a list of humanitarian locations in order to avoid accidental attacks.

One of the deadliest attacks was the Israeli drone strike that killed seven workers from World Central Kitchen, based in Washington, D.C., on April 1. The convoy of vehicles – marked with the group’s logo – was hit when the workers were heading home to the southern city of Rafah after unloading food aid in central Gaza.

The Israeli military’s chief spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, called the strike on the convoy a “misidentification and misclassification” and blamed “internal failures.”

But these internal failures were not new.

Using visual evidence and internal communications, The New York Times examined strikes on multiple aid group operations and shelters that came under Israeli fire even though each of the groups used the Israeli military’s deconfliction system to provide their locations. The pattern of strikes shows that in Israel’s battle against Hamas, not even the places in Gaza with every available avenue of protection are safe from Israeli fire.

Christopher Lockyear, secretary general of Doctors Without Borders, said the Israeli strikes on aid workers and facilities showed the “futility” of deconfliction measures “in a war fought with no rules.”

“This pattern of attacks,” he told reporters, “is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence.”

Israel says it has successfully safeguarded thousands of humanitarian convoys. In response to questions from the Times about the strikes on the aid groups, the military said it complies with international law and had “put in place detailed regulations for dealing with ‘sensitive sites,’ i.e., objects that received special protection for attack under the Law of Armed Conflict.”

After the World Central Kitchen drone strike unleashed global outrage, Israeli officials announced the firing of military commanders, the launch of a humanitarian coordination group and the opening of new aid access points into Gaza.

But after months of Israel’s war against Hamas, questions remained about to what extent the Israeli military will hold its fire in places where aid workers are present.

Anera

Mousa Shawwa worked for an American aid group called Anera for 13 years. On the afternoon of March 8, Shawwa, a logistics coordinator, had just returned home in central Gaza after distributing supplies. He was still wearing his Anera vest when an Israeli strike hit the house, killing him; his 6-year-old son, Karim; and several neighbors.

Emails provided by Anera show the group had repeatedly provided the Israeli military with coordinates and photos of its staff’s shelters, including the two-story residential building where Shawwa’s family and others had been living since the war began. The documents show that Israeli officials confirmed in October that the location was being “processed” in their system.

On March 4, in response to an Israeli military request, Anera again emailed a list of locations of warehouses and homes used by its staff, including Shawwa’s.

Four days later, the house was blown apart.

Visual evidence shows it was a surgical strike in a dense cluster of houses: All were left essentially untouched but one, which had only the top floor destroyed. Munitions experts told the Times that this kind of targeted damage pointed to a precision Israeli airdropped bomb.

“We thought that his affiliation with an American organization could guarantee our safety,” Shawwa’s wife, Duaa, told the Times. “Why? Why? We did everything necessary so that we would be in a safe place. My only question is, why?”

In a written statement to the Times, the Israeli military said that it targeted a Hamas terrorist who participated in the Oct. 7 attack and noted that the “incident is expected to be examined” by the military’s investigative body.

Anera said it had received “no information about who or what may have been targeted or why” and had requested an independent investigation into how Israel decided to bomb a house repeatedly registered in its deconfliction system.

Doctors Without Borders

Doctors Without Borders, founded in France, says two staff shelters registered with Israel’s deconfliction system came under fire without warning in January and February.

On Jan. 8, a projectile shot through a shelter on the outskirts of Khan Younis and killed a 5-year-old girl inside, the group said.

Photographs from the scene show the remnants of an Israeli tank shell lying outside.

In February, two family members of aid workers were killed when incoming fire set off an explosion in a different shelter along the coastal road. Seven others, mostly women and children, were injured in the blast. Hanging high on the building’s facade was a large flag emblazoned with the aid group’s logo.

Photos and videos showing the entry point of the munition and the damage left behind suggest a medium- to large-caliber weapon, experts said.

According to Doctors Without Borders, it was an Israeli tank shell.

The Israeli military previously told British broadcaster Sky News that its forces fired because they had identified “terror activity” at the building.

In a statement to the Times, the Israeli military denied striking the first shelter Jan. 8 and said military investigators would review the second incident.

International Rescue Committee and Medical Aid for Palestinians

On the morning of Jan. 18, a bomb landed on the wall around a compound housing medical staff members from the International Rescue Committee, an American aid group, and Medical Aid for Palestinians, a charity organization based in Britain.

Several people in the compound were injured, and six medical workers were withdrawn from Gaza.

Text messages between an aid staff member and an Israeli military official shared with the Times show that the Israeli military was aware of the compound’s location.

In the text exchange a month before the attack, the aid worker asks, “So we can bring them to this chalet, it is still safe.”

The reply from the Israeli military official was “yes.”

The building had two additional layers of protection. It was in the area that Israel had repeatedly designated as the humanitarian zone and safe for civilians. And British diplomatic officials had used high-level channels to confirm that the compound was deconflicted.

The Times obtained a report from an on-site investigation of the damage conducted by U.N. ordnance experts that concluded the evidence pointed to an MK83, which is a 1,000-pound bomb made in the United States.

The aid groups said that Israel provided six different explanations for the strike, claiming at different times that: the military was not operating in that area, the bomb had a defective tail fin, the bomb was aimed to hit a nearby target, and the object that hit the compound wasn’t actually a bomb, but a piece of aircraft fuselage.

“The variety of responses highlights a continued lack of transparency regarding what occurred,” Medical Aid for Palestinians and the International Rescue Committee said in a joint statement.

“It is clear from this experience that the Israeli military and Government are either unable or unwilling to properly investigate this serious incident.”

In response to questions by the Times, the Israeli military said it did not strike the compound’s location Jan. 18.