The declaration, while lacking teeth, is at least a concession that individuals dedicated to protecting and preserving the vulnerable in conflict deserve a heftier shield of protection in international humanitarian law. It is all the more important given the systematic, weasel-worded libelling that the IDF have pursued against the WCK workers. Behind the cover of bureaucratic plausibility and spread-sheet analysis, the Israeli authorities have conveniently packaged the charity worker with combat or terrorist groups, giving them equal standing in targeting.
The disgraceful nature of this is evident in the refusal to consider any legal action for the events of that April. On August 19, the IDF announced that it had found “no reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct that would justify opening a criminal investigation or the taking of additional measures against any of those involved in the incident.” The spokesperson’s remarks initially gave ballast to the worthiness of the General Staff Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), charged with making “factual assessments of exceptional operational incidents, while using a range of tools and methodologies.” It became very clear that these methodologies were heavily slanted to conflating combatants and humanitarian workers on mere inferences.
Consider, for instance, the IDF’s alleged identification of “a gunman on a truck in the humanitarian aid convoy while it was on route to a warehouse for the unloading of the aid.” The troops had “identified vehicles surrounding the trucks in a manner that, in their assessment, and based on accumulated operational experience, corresponded to a scenario in which the Hamas terrorist organization had taken control of the convoy.” Despite “serious failures in the process that led to the assessment that Hamas operatives were travelling in the vehicles,” the decision to strike the convoy raised no “reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct.” There had been, in the circumstances, a sufficient number of “suspicious indicators.”
Much is done to shift the blame to the humanitarian workers. They had, for instance, “hired an armed security force to accompany the convoy until the completion of the operation in order to protect it from seizure by armed actors in Gaza.” This “was not coordinated with the IDF authorities.” The IDF had also “attempted to contact WCK representatives in order to verify their assessment that the people in the vehicles were indeed not members of WCK.” These efforts – so it is claimed – were made during the half-hour period that the vehicles were being tracked. (The assumption had already been made that they were Hamas operatives or workers in league with them.) The someone sickening insinuation here is that these humanitarians brought it upon themselves.
Much the same view was expressed by the chief commander who ordered the strike, Colonel Nochi Mendel. He has faced no legal proceedings, merely administrative action in the form of dismissal from his role as chief of staff of the Nahal infantry brigade. Mendel had been remiss on the IDF’s rules of engagement and standard operating procedures.
In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation conducted in October 2025, Mendel had not favoured killing the WCK employees but was “not sorry” for what happened. Echoing the eventual findings of the investigation, the Colonel blamed “an intermingling between the WCK and Hamas operatives” that took place in an environment of evolving complexity. The suggestiveness, and the euphemisms, are all standard: that WCK had also made mistakes; that it was not “really a neutral organisation. Not really an organisation you can say is innocent and completely clean.” This lack of political sanitation was evidenced by “ties to Hamas.”
The apologia is accordingly built up and inflated: operational fuzziness, the expediency that a conflict situation demands. No mention of the protocols governing such humanitarian convoys seemed to warrant discussion. Instead, Mendel could see, in a video feed, “armed terrorists getting out and firing from the trucks.” After the convoy arrived at a warehouse at Deir al Balah to unload the aid, “We see them all mixed together – both the WCK guys and the Hamas terrorists with weapons.” He cites a claim to being noble: that he could have ordered the attack there and then but preferred to wait “so as not to harm the WCK.” That turned out to be a cautionary note with little effect.
Mendel then claims that the IDF did contact the WCK – but not those in the convoy. A WCK representative from Europe was reached. The answer came: “there aren’t supposed to be armed guards.” The WCK personnel, after leaving the warehouse, then deviated from a coordinated prearranged route – so says Mendel. This aided the decision to strike, but an investigation into the events by Australian Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin suggests that the decision had already been reached by that point. It came as no surprise that WCK, in a statement on Mendel’s ruminations, regarded them as “slanderous” and lacking “credibility.”
The decision not to initiate criminal proceedings, or to conduct a truly independent inquiry, baffled the governments whose nationals had died in the attack. The Israeli ambassadors of several countries were called in to give answers. A joint statement by the foreign ministries of Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom called the decision to close the case “shameful.” The Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski was almost livid. “Partnership requires respect,” he stated. “The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, as well as the failure of accountability for IDF’s excessive use of force are undermining public support in even pro-Israel nations.”
The goal of these operations, irrespective of the deaths they cause, is ultimately captured in chilling words by Mendel. There was no room to feel remorse here. The situation was “very complex.” Besides, the IDF had gone into Gaza “to win, to eradicate this evil from the whole world, not just for ourselves.” They were doing it for us. How easily does the righteous rhetoric of civilization justify the unspeakable.
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So much of what has occurred in Gaza and in the West Bank is a repeat of the colonial take-over of territories. Reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Heartbeat Of Wounded Knee, Every Mother’s Son is Guilty, Empires of Violence, Truth Telling…. the list of books is long, the violence explicit, the excuses the same as being used to deny any sense of culpability, the original inhabitants, the aboriginals, the American Indians are deemed less than people, uncivilised…. the language used by Israeli politicians and others is the same as used in the colonial wars in the Americas, USA, Canada, Africa and Australia. The rationalisation of the genocide the same.
Sadly the colonisers, mainly Europeans or settlers of European descent, Christians claiming to be the most civilised people on earth remain silent, a complicity which allows the genocide, dare I call it a Holocaust to continue, even surreptitiously endorsing the violence against not just Palestinians, but also against those who dare protest.
They are the Chosen. They will decide what is truth and what is not.
Something we’ve learned about the Israeli government and its leadership is that they are inveterate manipulators of the truth : they are liars!
They will not let the world’s genuine journalists into Gaza and those that do get in to report the truth are killed by the IDF.
While we ae holding a Royal Commission into antisemitism in Australia the Israeli Minister for Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir has announced the plan for ethnic cleansing in Gaza. He announced that Israeli plan aimed to remove 250,000 Palestinians from Gaza in the first year, followed by the rest of its population of roughly 2 million over the next six years. This is his popular pitch for re-election of the Netanyahu government which he reminds us is the only functioning democracy in the Middle East.
The vile genocidal bloodthirst that has been blatantly pursued by Israel and the IDF will not stand.
The State of Israel was granted existence by the international community and that same community should now revoke its license to exist, due to the fact that it refused other human beings the right to exist.
You cannot demand that justice be given with impunity when the same has given no quarter, the law of divinity will not allow it.
More perspective here….
https://theshot.net.au/uncategorized/the-idf-ran-in-the-sydney-marathon-the-same-week-they-spat-on-zomi-frankcoms-grave/
CHECK OUT THE STORY RELEASED IN THE GUARDIAN TODAY – ‘Death on the road to Rafah: the night the IDF targeted World Central Kitchen aid workers’
Two official versions Israel/IDF vs Australian/World Central Kitchen (WCK).
Mendel and his brigade were police, judge and jury, and carried out the targeted execution of all 7 members of the WCK, based purely on night drone surveillance, no senior military governance or oversight, failure to observe a senior military command not to attack what was known to be a joint planned and coordinated international WCK – IDF humanitarian food aid program, gross negligence, assumption and vengeance.
The target was a known solitary internationally staffed humanitarian WCK convoy on its return journey from a food delivery to an agreed designated warehouse in Gaza. There was no evidence of HAMAS inception or hijack. There was absolute reason to protect the convoy or at least have some appearance of protective escort on its final delivery run. But the attack was callously carried out on the return journey on an unarmed, unescorted known humanitarian convoy.
This is vengeance, murder and a serious war crime on civilians from numerous countries who were arguably entrapped by the IDF and slaughtered – executed without any lawful or senior military oversight. And Mendel makes pathetic unsubstantiated excuses, the most obvious being why even target such a convoy when its occupants were known civilian aid workers from other countries, their mission accounted for and authorised, were unarmed and clearly posed no threat, after a humanitarian food aid delivery, thus empty handed.
A brutal massacre under the cover of darkness just demonstrates the severe rot, hatred, vindictive menace of a regime on a genocidal mission of vengeance, be it Palestinians or citizens of other countries.
This is terrorism and clearly reflects the same soft politics and foreign policy of the Zionist mission in other countries such as Australia, where their diplomatic mission, lobbyists, followers and influencers obfuscate, target and interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries – a toxic insidious military driven rogue supremacist fascist fundamentalist Zionist monoculture at war with the whole world, not just in the ancient lands and peoples of Palestine.
Source –
‘Death on the road to Rafah: the night the IDF targeted World Central Kitchen aid workers’ – 5 September 2026, Julian Borger, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/05/gaza-aid-workers-world-central-kitchen-idf-israel
Jon Chesterton,
thank you, I think your comment is spot on.
When Zomi Frankcom was murdered there was outrage from Labor. It lasted all of a couple of days.
When the survivors of Israel’s torture and rape of the Sumud flotilla members and the Greens had managed to raise sufficient media attention to the assault and rape of Australians by Israeli soldiers, there was outrage from Labor – well, sort of – that lasted for all of a couple of days.
When the IDF announced the predictable results of their investigation, there was outrage from Labor, it lasted all of a couple of days.
How long could we expect Labor to put up resistance if Israel invaded Australia (hypothetically speaking)? All of a couple of days.
While the IDF flips the bird at all Australians with its sham investigation, that Labor and the investigator it assigned to this heinous act deffered to, the pro-Israel lobby in Australia continues to give an enthusiast two-fingered salute to Australians by demanding a say in how ABC journalists cover the Middle East.
@ Thommo – Quite
Is Labor suffering from cognitive impairment, memory loss, poor concentration or just collective lack of moral will – no social or moral backbone? Or is it an entirely Parliamentary or whole of Government affliction? Our Government’s incestuous and deeply offensive relationship with Israel is an insult to us all.
I remain at a loss but not speechless.
Fingers ready.