JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli investigation into the killing of seven aid workers in an airstrike in Gaza this week has found serious errors and breaches of procedure by the military, resulting in two officers being fired and senior commanders they were formally reprimanded.
The investigation found that Israeli forces mistakenly believed they were attacking Hamas gunmen when the drone strikes hit the three vehicles of the aid group World Central Kitchen, but that standard procedures had been violated.
“The attack on the humanitarian vehicles is a serious mistake resulting from a serious failure due to misidentification, errors in decision-making and an attack contrary to standard operating procedures,” the military said in a statement released on Friday.
It said it had fired a brigade chief of staff with the rank of colonel and a brigade fire support officer with the rank of major, and issued formal reprimands to senior officers, including the general in charge of Southern Command.
The killing of the seven aid workers, including British, Australian and Polish nationals, an American-Canadian citizen and a Palestinian colleague, sparked global outrage this week.
(This story has been refiled to remove extraneous ‘s’ in World Central Kitchen, in paragraph 2)