Julian Borger
The Guardian / August 30, 2024
IDF claims ‘armed assailants’ tried to hijack vehicle leading convoy of medical supplies, but aid organizer says those killed were transport company staff,
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said they carried out an airstrike on a humanitarian aid convoy in Gaza aimed at “armed assailants” trying to hijack it but the charity that organized the aid said people killed in the strike were employees of the transport company it was working with.
The convoy, organized by the US-based NGO ANERA, was carrying medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati-run hospital in Rafah on Thursday evening at the time of the attack. Its route had been coordinated in advance with the IDF, under a de-confliction process intended to prevent aid vehicles being bombed.
ANERA’s Palestine country director, Sandra Rasheed, said: “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.”
Unconfirmed reports from Gaza said five people were killed in the airstrike.
An IDF statement confirmed the route had been coordinated, but claimed that “during the convoy’s movement, a number of armed assailants seized control of the vehicle in the front of the convoy (a Jeep) and began to lead it”.
It added: “After the takeover and further verification that a precise strike on the armed assailants’ vehicle can be carried out, a strike was conducted.
“No damage was caused to the other vehicles in the convoy and it reached its destination as planned. The strike on the armed assailants removed the threat of them seizing control over the humanitarian convoy.”
The IDF claimed it had contacted ANERA after the incident and that the aid organization had “verified that all of the convoy’s organization members and humanitarian aid were safe and reached their destination as planned”.
ANERA confirmed that the convoy did reach the hospital, but said only one person travelling in the convoy was an ANERA employee. The rest worked for its partner transport company, which was not named.
“We are urgently seeking further details about what happened,” Rasheed said.
The airstrike on the convoy came hours after Israeli soldiers opened fire on a World Food Program (WFP) vehicle clearly marked with UN insignia, travelling in a convoy of two.
The WFP said the vehicle was hit by at least 10 bullets as it approached an IDF checkpoint at Wadi Gaza. The vehicle was armoured with reinforced glass and no one inside was injured, but the agency temporarily suspended movement of its staff around Gaza.
Cindy McCain, the head of the WFP, called the shooting “totally unacceptable”. “As last night’s events show, the current de-confliction system is failing and this cannot go on any longer,” McCain said.
On 1 April, the IDF killed seven aid workers in a drone attack on a convoy run by the World Central Kitchen charity.
The IDF admitted to “grave errors” by its officers, firing two of them, and conceded that it had been informed of the planned convoy in advance but said the information had not been passed down to operational units.
An IDF investigation also claimed an officer thought he saw a gunman on the roof of a truck being escorted by the charity’s vehicles, while watching grainy surveillance footage. There was no evidence that any gunman was present.
Julian Borger is The Guardian’s world affairs editor based in Washington
