Did Israel commit a war crime by killing World Central Kitchen aid workers?

Whether or not Israel is guilty of war crimes is a debate for the courts. But the incident is troubling for many reasons.

What we know for sure. Israel has publicly admitted that they did in fact launch three missiles from a drone that resulted in the death of 7 aid workers and their driver. Israel dismissed two officers, and reprimanded three more.

What we don’t know is more troubling.

1. If Israeli forces are this quick to send three missiles on three vehicles based on someone thinking they saw a man with a gun, how many times have they done this before?
2. Do Israeli forces investigate misconduct only when westerners are killed by their strikes?
3. What is the standard for “Positive Identification” of a target by IDF personnel?
4. Knowing the Gaza strip is in famine conditions, was this a part of an ongoing operation to deny food deliveries in order to set conditions for mass migration of Gazan residents to Egypt?
5. Was this an American drone, or an American missile? Is this the consequence of having so many years of uncritical support for Israel? The death of Americans at Israeli hands?

These unknowns are going to be hotly debated in the international community for a while to come. However this is not the first time Israel has been “fast and loose” with sending missiles at targets it has not properly identified. In 1967, the USS Liberty came under sustained Israeli attack, resulting in the death of 35 Americans. In the case of the USS Liberty, Israel did admit fault and pay several million dollars in remittance for the lives lost and damage to the Liberty.

In this case Israel has two choices. The first is to continue with the “grave mistake, series of errors” explanation that leaves open the possibility that it was very intentional and standard operating procedure for the IDF and they just got caught hitting the wrong target this time. The second is to allow the prosecution of the former IDF Officers of war crimes in the International Criminal Court.

This is not a “new development” either, the UN (almost always hostile to Israel) made the claim by 30 October 2023 that evidence of war crimes in Gaza, by both Hamas and the IDF, had occurred. The war crimes by Hamas were put on display, the deliberate targeting of civilians on 7 October 2023, including still holding hostages.

So far, the running total is 196 aid workers have perished attempting to deliver aid in Gaza, this gives “circumstantial evidence” to support the idea that Israel is attempting a deliberate starvation campaign against Gaza. The international community sat by quietly when it wasn’t their citizen being killed by the IDF, and the “use of starvation as a weapon of war” is a war crime.

And this leaves Israel in a no win situation, if they ease up on the food blockade now the international community will likely come to the conclusion that Israel did this only to soften the political impacts stemming from killing 7 westerners. If they double down on the food blockade that becomes additional evidence that Israel is deliberately committing war crimes using starvation as a weapon against civilians.

Additionally, the use of physical destruction of communications infrastructure and cyber attacks to stop communication in and out of Gaza has been noted by the international press. At this point there is really no independent body that has access to Gaza that can verify any of the IDF claims involving compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL). Israel has an obvious interest in keeping the lit on Gazan communications in order to “control the narrative” and keep any “appeals to emotion” by Gazans to the international community from swaying political opinions.

And lastly, there is the possibility that killing the World Central Kitchen workers was a deliberate act against the United States in retribution for abstaining from the recent UN Security Council Vote demanding an immediate ceasefire, and immediate hostage return. Netanyahu went so far as to pull out of visits to Washington, and continue to insist that the IDF will enter Rafah. It must be noted that the IDF worked very hard to convince Gazans that Rafah was a safe zone for them to gather while the IDF hit Gaza City hard.

If I were in charge of Israel I would sacrifice the two senior officers for prosecution by the international criminal court. That would allow me to continue the current military actions with the presumption that the deliberate, targeted killing of WCK aid workers was an “one off” and not “business as usual.” This would allow Israel to continue to use “opening additional aid routes” as a bargaining chip for the release of hostages, and continue military operations against Hamas largely unrestricted by international observation. This would preserve Israeli political maneuver space, but it would admit that the IDF committed war crimes.