What is Israel's track record on investigating civilian deaths?

One of three World Central Kitchen vehicles hit in deadly Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. Israel’s military says the attack was a mistake and it is investigating.

(Associated Press)

By Tracy WilkinsonStaff Writer

April 5, 2024 Updated 2:40 PM PT

WASHINGTON — Hours after Israel killed seven staff members of a U.S.-based aid group in Gaza, drawing global outrage and an apology from the Israeli prime minister, the country’s top military official promised a transparent and thorough investigation.

The Israeli airstrikes on a three-vehicle convoy carrying World Central Kitchen workers would be examined by an “independent body,” said Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, chief of staff for the Israel Defense Forces. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

That “independent body” is an Israeli system led by the Military Advocate General, or MAG, the senior lawyers who oversee the conduct of war and other rule-of-law issues for the IDF.

Critics question whether a group with ties to the army can adequately investigate its actions.

The process also points to what human rights advocates say is a long track record of Israel promising to investigate its killings of civilians, but rarely rendering satisfactory results.

The World Central Kitchen attack is becoming the exception that proves the rule: Under extraordinary pressure from the U.S. and others, Israeli military officials announced Friday that two senior officers were being dismissed from their posts and three others “reprimanded” after Israeli forces mistook one of the charity workers for an armed militant. Military lawyers will later determine if any of the officers should face criminal charges and whether the two senior officers, a major and a reserve colonel, would be cashiered from the army.

The military says it would “learn the lessons of the incident,” but few expect it to address systemic failures.
And World Central Kitchen demanded further independent investigation.

“Without systemic change, there will be more military failures, more apologies and more grieving families,” the organization said in a statement.

In a complex and brutal war that has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, it is all but certain that many cases will be lost in the ruins of destruction and displacement.

Here is a look at Israel’s track record on investigations.

The TV journalist’s death

One case that critics point to as an example of problems with internal Israeli investigations is the death of a well-known and widely admired reporter for Al Jazeera television.

Two years ago, Israeli soldiers fired on a group of Palestinian journalists covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, killing Palestinian American journalist Shireen abu Akleh.

At first, the Israel Defense Forces blamed Palestinian militants for the killing, but eventually had to acknowledge one of its soldiers fired the deadly shot.

Pressure came from witnesses, colleagues and the U.S. government, which said the Israeli government eventually “cooperated” with a U.S. investigation. But the soldier was never disciplined — because, Israeli officials said, the shooting of Abu Akleh, clad in a vest with the word “PRESS” prominently displayed, was accidental.

“The killing of Shireen abu Akleh and the failure of the army’s investigative process to hold anyone responsible is not a one-off event,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said at the time.

Similarly, the killings by Israeli forces of other Palestinian Americans, children, the elderly and even, in one case, Israeli hostages seeking to be rescued in Gaza are often chalked up to mistakes that do not merit punishment.

‘A slap on the wrist’

Weeks or months can pass after investigations are announced with no further public information. Cases that end in discipline — much less change in policy — are rare.

“The Israeli military has a horrendous record of investigating itself,” said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch. “Every once in a while, a low-level soldier, for a modest offense ... gets a slap on the wrist.”

What Israel does not appear to investigate are its rules of engagement and a seemingly low threshold for the use of deadly force, which leads to the disproportionate death toll among civilians, according to human rights activists as well as military analysts.

The latest case of the workers for the Washington-based World Central Kitchen who were killed after delivering tons of food in the Deir al Balah region is a stark example. The group — six foreign nationals and one Palestinian — traveled in three vehicles bearing roof-top World Central Kitchen markings that were picked off, one by one, by Israeli missile-firing drones.

Military officials said that the attack was a case of mistaken identification. In a statement on Friday releasing its initial findings, the Israeli military said officers running the Gaza operation mistook one of the volunteer’s backpack for a rifle and believed a gunman had boarded the convoy.

But in addition to clearly marking its vehicles, the food charity says its security teams were in close contact and coordination with the Israel Defense Forces, a “deconfliction” procedure most aid groups say they follow. Israel said the coordinates never filtered down to the drone operators who fired the missiles.

Are there cases that spurred systematic changes?

After an earlier Israel-Gaza war, in 2014, the Israeli military set up a separate “fact-finding” mechanism that would look into reports of abuse and was subject to civilian courts. The IDF said it would investigate events that “resulted in significant and unanticipated civilian harm and events where military activity allegedly resulted in damage to medical or U.N. facilities.”

In 1999, the Israeli Supreme Court stepped in after pleas from human rights organizations and ruled that torture of Palestinians at the hands of Shin Bet, the country’s domestic security agency, was generally prohibited.

The rights groups included Israel’s B’Tselem, which documented beatings, threats and subjecting prisoners to twisted, painful bodily positions.

But the court left open the possible exception of harsh tactics in the so-called ticking bomb scenario, when it is believed a detainee has information on an imminent terrorist attack.

Amnesty International and other rights groups say that Shin Bet has continued to use the exception, often on specious grounds, and employ torture against hundreds of detained Palestinians.

“The courts are generally hands-off when it comes to military operations,” especially during a dynamic war, Roth said.

What is happening in the World Central Kitchen case?

Numerous governments, including Israel’s close allies, condemned the killings of the workers. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that it would not happen again.

The charity founded by the U.S.-based Spanish chef José Andrés on Thursday asked the governments of the foreign aid workers killed in the attack to help push for a truly independent investigation and repeated that demand after Friday’s announcement.

“We have asked the governments of Australia, Canada, the United States of America, Poland and the United Kingdom to join us in demanding an independent, third-party investigation into these attacks, including whether they were carried out intentionally or otherwise violated international law,” World Central Kitchen said in a statement.

“An independent investigation is the only way to determine the truth of what happened, ensure transparency and accountability for those responsible, and prevent future attacks on humanitarian aid workers.”

After Friday’s announcement, Andrés reiterated the call for an independent commission: “The IDF cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

The aid workers’ killings prompted unusually harsh criticism from President Biden, who called it “outrageous.”

He demanded a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and “concrete” steps to better protect civilians and aid workers, some 200 of whom have been killed in nearly six months of war.

As Gazans face possible starvation, Biden said that if Israel does not change its way of operating, the U.S. may rethink its own policies of support for Israel, which has for years included supplying billions of dollars worth of military equipment to Israel.

Immediately, Israel said it would open two new ground routes into Gaza for delivering food and water; the U.S. said it would wait to see if Israel follows through.

What does Israel say?

On the World Central Kitchen assault, the military’s statement called it “a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures.”

Before the latest attack, senior Israeli officials have said their forces are obeying the law, although “mistakes” happen. The MAG lawyers have been a little more candid.

Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the head of the MAG corps of lawyers, issued a stark warning to the troops in February.

“We have encountered cases of unacceptable conduct that deviate from IDF values and protocols,” she wrote to commanders in the Gaza war.

“Some incidents go beyond the disciplinary domain, and cross the criminal threshold,” she wrote.

Tomer-Yerushalmi specifically cited the theft or destruction by soldiers of civilian property, soldiers singing Hebrew songs and mocking Palestinians inside a mosque, and the excessive use of force, including against detainees.

Scarcely a week later, Israeli troops fired on desperate crowds trying to pull food off an aid convoy. More than 100 Palestinian civilians were killed in the chaos.

Israeli officials said that many of the dead had been trampled, and that soldiers fired warning shots only when they felt endangered. But some witnesses gave reporters differing accounts and doctors said they had treated mostly gunshot victims. Aid into Gaza has been severely limited and much of the population is at risk of starvation, the United Nations has said.

“Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed over the course of this conflict, not just today, but over the past nearly five months,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at the time, while urging Israel to conduct an investigation. Nothing has come of it.

What killings are still awaiting a resolution?

In case after case, Israel’s promises to investigate have rarely satisfied the demands of victims, their families or their governments.

That has continued in the current war, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed and about 240 taken hostage.

Soon after Oct. 7, journalists reporting in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel were hit by Israeli fire. One Reuters journalist was killed and another critically injured. Reuters contracted a Dutch research organization to analyze the circumstances of the attack, which concluded that it was the work of an Israeli tank crew.

In response, the Israeli military said it was firing on suspected Hezbollah militants active in southern Lebanon and does not target journalists. It was investigating the attack, the Israel Defense Forces said.

In December, three Israeli hostages who had been taken captive by Hamas were attempting to get rescued; they were shirtless and waving a white flag as they approached Israeli soldiers. The soldiers shot them dead. The military investigated and concluded that it was a mistake but that the shooting did not merit discipline because there was no malice involved.

In two separate shootings at the beginning of the year, two Palestinian American teenagers were killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where tensions have flared in tandem with the Gaza war. It is unclear whether the shooters were military or Jewish settlers who often operate with the army’s blessing. The U.S. government asked for a serious investigation as both young men were U.S. citizens, but no conclusion has been made public.