US says Israel behind aid convoy shooting, must ‘immediately rectify’ its conduct
US envoy claims IDF pinned incident on communication error; army is yet to formally comment after WFP paused Gaza activity following shooting toward car, in which nobody was hurt
The United States said Thursday that Israel must “immediately rectify” its conduct, claiming Israel had admitted it was behind Tuesday evening’s shooting toward a United Nations World Food Programme humanitarian aid convoy inside Gaza, which Jerusalem was said to have pinned on a communication error between army units.
“Humanitarian workers are there to help innocent civilians, and Israel must ensure they are protected,” US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller wrote on X.
US Deputy Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood said Jerusalem had informed Washington that an initial review found the shots had been fired due to a miscommunication in the IDF.
“We have urged them to immediately rectify the issues within their system,” Wood told a Thursday UN Security Council meeting on Gaza.
The army, or any Israeli official, were yet to comment on the incident Friday afternoon.
On Wednesday, the WFP suspended the movement of its employees across the Gaza Strip, saying at least 10 bullets struck one of its clearly marked vehicles as it approached an Israeli military checkpoint at the Wadi Gaza bridge, in northern Gaza, after completing a mission in the Strip’s south. No one was hurt.
Separately, the IDF said Wednesday that it had struck a group of gunmen who had hijacked an aid convoy in southern Gaza.
According to the military, a convoy of aid trucks from the American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera) organization entered the southern Rafah area with IDF coordination.
During the drive, “armed men took over a vehicle at the front of the convoy (a jeep) and began to lead it,” the military said.
Shortly after the hijacking, the IDF said it was able to determine that it could strike only the car with the gunmen, without harming the rest of the convoy. It then carried out the strike.
“There was no damage to the other vehicles in the convoy and it reached its destination according to the plan. The attack on the armed men removed the threat of them taking over the humanitarian convoy,” the IDF said.
Unconfirmed reports without sourcing in the Guardian and Washington Post claimed that five people were killed in the incident; the reports did not specify if the alleged victims were gunmen or civilians.
The military said representatives from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit spoke with members of Anera, who “confirmed that all the members of the organization who were part of the convoy, and the humanitarian aid, were safe and sound and reached their destination safely.”
“The presence of armed men in a humanitarian convoy without coordination is against the procedures and makes it difficult to secure the convoys and their workers and thus also harms the humanitarian effort in Gaza,” the IDF added.
Anera claimed that only one person in the convoy was an employee of the organization, while the rest worked for a partner transport company, which it did not name, the Guardian reported.
“This is a shocking incident. The convoy, which was coordinated by Anera and approved by Israeli authorities, included an Anera employee who was fortunately unharmed. Tragically, several individuals, all employed by the transportation company we work with, were killed in the attack. They were in the first vehicle of the convoy,” Anera’s Palestine Country Director, Sandra Rasheed, was cited by the Guardian as saying.
The strikes came as the UN readies to inoculate some 640,000 children in Gaza against polio, after an unvaccinated 10-month-old boy was found to have the Strip’s first case of the disease in 25 years.
The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed Wednesday night that there would be localized humanitarian truces in the Strip to facilitate the vaccination campaign.
Israel has previously come under fire for attacking humanitarian convoys in Gaza. In April, the IDF inadvertently struck a clearly marked World Central Kitchen aid convoy near Deir al-Balah, in the Strip’s center, killing seven aid workers.
The war in Gaza broke out on October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll, which cannot be verified, does not distinguish between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
