The accidental killing of Australian humanitarian worker Lalzawmi ‘Zomi’ Frankcom, along with six of her colleagues, in Gaza earlier this week is a tragedy.
Israel has acknowledged responsibility for the attack, and is fully investigating what happened. The IDF statement about the incident, as well as the ZFA’s statement on the same, is below.
While the investigation is continuing, we know this: It was a clear case of mistaken identity. Israel purposefully targeted the convoy because it mistakenly thought it was not a civilian convoy. We know this because Israel does not target civilians. And we also know that Hamas combatants disguise themselves as civilians and fight from civilian infrastructure, including schools, houses and civilian cars. Hamas does this in order to bring about the deaths of civilians, which increases pressure on Israel.
We also know that Ms Frankcom’s tragic death was not a war crime. If the IDF had targeted the convoy knowing who it was targeting, that would have been a war crime. But mistakes – as horrible and tragic as they are – do not amount to war crimes.
The White House and State Department agree. Watch this video from the 2 April press conference.
In other news, Israel has concluded its operation in the Shifa hospital. Israeli intelligence knew that Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters were gathering in the hospital for weeks, and let them do so. Then the IDF surrounded the hospital within hours, then over the next two weeks methodically hunted down the fighters. Two hundred were killed. Five hundred were captured, with the reams of intelligence that brings.
Not a single civilian was killed in the operation. Israel provided medical supplies and assistance to help innocent patients during the operation.
Three Israelis were seriously wounded by a lone terrrorist who stabbed them in the southern town of Gan Yavne. Most of the recent domestic violence has been directed at soldiers. This attack was on people in civilian clothes working out in a gym.
Yesterday four policeman at a checkpoint in central Israel were injured when a 26-year-old man drove at them. It is being treated as a suspected terrorism attack.
Seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force were killed in an airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus. Those killed include Mohammad Reza Zahedi, senior commander of the Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon. Iran is blaming the attack on Israel. It is not clear yet whether the attack will be treated as an escalation of the battles in southern Lebanon.
