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                    "In September 2025, nine countries launched the Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel.\u00a0 Australia explained its important if dark inspiration in pursuing it: the slaying of Zomi Francken, along with six of her colleagues from the World Central Kitchen charity on April 1, 2024 by Israeli forces in Gaza.\u00a0 All perished to an attack consisting of three missiles fired from a Hermes 450 drone in a stated \u201cdeconflicted\u201d zone, despite clear logo markings on the convoy vehicles and extensive coordination regarding their movements with the Israeli authorities.\nThe 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.\u00a0 It is all the more important given the systematic, weasel-worded libelling that the IDF have pursued against the WCK workers.\u00a0 \nBehind 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.\nThe 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 \u201cno 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\u201d.\u00a0 The spokesperson\u2019s remarks initially gave ballast to the worthiness of the General Staff Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), charged with making \u201cfactual assessments of exceptional operational incidents, while using a range of tools and methodologies.\u201d\u00a0 It became very clear that these methodologies were heavily slanted to conflating combatants and humanitarian workers on mere inferences.\nConsider, for instance, the IDF\u2019s alleged identification of \u201ca gunman on a truck in the humanitarian aid convoy while it was on route to a warehouse for the unloading of the aid.\u201d\u00a0 The troops had \u201cidentified 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.\u201d\u00a0 Despite \u201cserious failures in the process that led to the assessment that Hamas operatives were travelling in the vehicles\u201d, the decision to strike the convoy raised no \u201creasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct\u201d.\u00a0 There had been, in the circumstances, a sufficient number of \u201csuspicious indicators\u201d.\nREAD:\u00a0UK, Australia, Canada call Israel\u2019s decision to close World Central Kitchen strike probe \u2018shameful\u2019\u00a0\nMuch is done to shift the blame to the humanitarian workers.\u00a0 They had, for instance, \u201chired 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.\u201d\u00a0 This \u201cwas not coordinated with the IDF authorities.\u201d\u00a0 The IDF had also \u201cattempted to contact WCK representatives in order to verify their assessment that the people in the vehicles were indeed not members of WCK.\u201d\u00a0 These efforts \u2013 so it is claimed \u2013 were made during the half-hour period that the vehicles were being tracked.\u00a0 (The assumption had already been made that they were Hamas operatives or workers in league with them.)\u00a0 The someone sickening insinuation here is that these humanitarians brought it upon themselves.\nMuch the same view was expressed by the chief commander who ordered the strike, Colonel Nochi Mendel.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Mendel had been remiss on the IDF\u2019s rules of engagement and standard operating procedures.\u00a0\nIn an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation conducted in October 2025, Mendel had not favoured killing the WCK employees but was \u201cnot sorry\u201d for what happened.\u00a0 Echoing the eventual findings of the investigation, the Colonel blamed \u201can intermingling between the WCK and Hamas operatives\u201d that took place in an environment of evolving complexity.\u00a0 The suggestiveness, and the euphemisms, are all standard: that WCK had also made mistakes; that it was not \u201creally a neutral organisation.\u00a0 Not really an organisation you can say is innocent and completely clean.\u201d\u00a0 This lack of political sanitation was evidenced by \u201cties to Hamas.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\nThe apologia is accordingly built up and inflated: operational fuzziness, the expediency that a conflict situation demands.\u00a0 No mention of the protocols governing such humanitarian convoys seemed to warrant discussion.\u00a0 Instead, Mendel could see, in a video feed, \u201carmed terrorists getting out and firing from the trucks.\u201d\u00a0 After the convoy arrived at a warehouse at Deir al Balah to unload the aid, \u201cWe see them all mixed together \u2013 both the WCK guys and the Hamas terrorists with weapons.\u201d\u00a0 He cites a claim to being noble: that he could have ordered the attack there and then but preferred to wait \u201cso as not to harm the WCK.\u201d\u00a0 That turned out to be a cautionary note with little effect.\nREAD:\u00a0Israel seeks Trump’s backing to ethnically cleanse Palestinians\nMendel then claims that the IDF did contact the WCK \u2013 but not those in the convoy.\u00a0 A WCK representative from Europe was reached.\u00a0 The answer came: \u201cthere aren\u2019t supposed to be armed guards.\u201d\u00a0 The WCK personnel, after leaving the warehouse, then deviated from a coordinated prearranged route \u2013 so says Mendel.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It came as no surprise that WCK, in a statement on Mendel\u2019s ruminations, regarded them as \u201cslanderous\u201d and lacking \u201ccredibility\u201d.\u00a0\nThe decision not to initiate criminal proceedings, or to conduct a truly independent inquiry, baffled the governments whose nationals had died in the attack.\u00a0 The Israeli ambassadors of several countries were called in to give answers.\u00a0 A joint statement by the foreign ministries of Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom called the decision to close the case \u201cshameful\u201d.\u00a0 \nThe Polish foreign minister Rados\u0142aw Sikorski was almost livid.\u00a0 \u201cPartnership requires respect,\u201d he stated.\u00a0 \u201cThe humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, as well as the failure of accountability for IDF\u2019s excessive use of force are undermining public support in even pro-Israel nations.\u201d\nThe goal of these operations, irrespective of the deaths they cause, is ultimately captured in chilling words by Mendel.\u00a0 There was no room to feel remorse here.\u00a0 The situation was \u201cvery complex\u201d.\u00a0 Besides, the IDF had gone into Gaza \u201cto win, to eradicate this evil from the whole world, not just for ourselves.\u201d\u00a0 They were doing it for us.\u00a0 How easily does the righteous rhetoric of civilization justify the unspeakable.\nOPINION:\u00a0Exonerating murder: The IDF and the World Central Kitchen killings\nThe views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor."
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