The war in Gaza stopped the world for a moment a week ago. A shocking attack was revealed in which Israel had killed seven aid workers in a drone strike.
In this story, an expert evaluates what can be said about the attack that happened on Monday last week from the point of view of international law.
With the help of satellite images, we located the places of the attack and recorded on video the last stages of the lives of the two workers who died in the attack. You can watch the video from the beginning of the story.
In this story, we also tell what is known about the attack now.
This is how the organization tells about the events
On Monday of last week, seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen transported food aid that had been brought to Gaza by sea from Cyprus to the warehouse. Food aid totaled 100,000 tons.
After the trucks had been emptied at the warehouse, the aid workers left there in a convoy of three cars at midnight Finnish time. They drove south along the road following the coast.
The convoy moved in a buffer zone established by the Israeli army, where aid organizations should be able to operate safely.
The animation below shows the location of the destroyed cars.
All the cars in the convoy were marked with aid organization logos. They were at least on the roofs and front windows of cars.
The Israeli army had been notified of the convoy’s movements in advance.
Two of the aid workers’ cars were armored. The cars drove along the al-Rashid coastal road.
Director of the aid organization José Andrés has accused the Israeli army of a deliberate attack and called for an independent investigation into the events.
You can watch Andrés comment on the strike in the video below.
First, the Israeli army hit one car with a missile launched from a drone. According to Andrés, the head of the aid organization, the aid workers fled from the first car to the second and then to the third, but were always hit by another attack.
The Israeli army therefore carried out the attack in a series where the cars were destroyed one by one. It has granted the transactions.
The distance between the first destroyed car and the last destroyed car was about 2.5 kilometers.
The map below shows how the Israeli strike progressed along a road that was supposed to be safe for aid agencies.
And these pictures show the details of the strikes. The first and second destroyed cars were armored Toyota Hiluxes. The third was not an armored vehicle.
International experts have evaluated Britain, among others in the public broadcasting company BBC and in the network of investigative journalists at Bellingcat, that the Israeli military carried out a series of strikes with Spike missiles launched from drones. Also Uutisten’s military expert Marko Eklund consider it likely.
Eklund points out that anti-tank missiles have a directional cavity charge, where the power of a relatively small amount of explosive is focused on a single point. Due to the targeted explosion effect, the bodies of the cars remained intact.
This is what Israel has said about the attack
The Israeli army has admitted to killing aid workers in a series of drone strikes and apologized for the mistake it made.
An internal army investigation calls the killing of the aid workers a “serious accident”. According to the investigation, mistakes and procedural violations were found in the airstrike.
According to the army, the attack was caused by a mistaken identification of the target. It claims an armed suspect had boarded one of the aid trucks as it drove from the port to the World Central Kitchen warehouse. The army believed it was a fighter from the extremist organization Hamas.
The Israeli military claims it believed the cars had been taken over by Hamas fighters. In addition, the military claims that the drone pilots mistook the bag carried by one of the men for a rifle.
An internal investigation found that the soldiers involved in the attack made a mistake when they assumed all the cars were carrying armed Hamas fighters and did not consider the possibility that there were unarmed civilians.
The army also claims that the aid organization’s logos on the roofs and windows of the cars were not visible because it was dark. Therefore, the cars were not identified.
The army has dismissed two officers and reprimanded two commanders.
What does international law say?
The attack prompted politicians and researchers to question whether Israel is following international law in its attacks. Emeritus Professor of International Law, Academician Martti Koskenniemi give answer.
– This is an unusually clear war crime for several reasons, Koskenniemi tells by phone.
The basic principle of international law is that you may not attack civilian targets, Koskenniemi points out. If it is unclear whether the target of the attack is a military or civilian target, it must be assumed to be a civilian target.
However, the basic principle includes an exception called the gray zone by Koskenniemi.
– An act can cause civilian casualties if the suffering caused to the civilian victims is proportionate to the military objective to be achieved. That’s the gray zone, says Koskenniemi.
However, he considers the attack on the convoy by the Israeli army’s aid organization to be a clear war crime. In an unclear situation, the Israeli army should have assumed that it was a civilian target.
– This is confirmed by the fact that the Geneva agreement separately states that aid transport, which is clearly marked, enjoys special protection, Koskenniemi says.
According to Koskenniemi, according to the operating principle of the war crimes system, Israel must itself judge the person or persons who committed the war crime.
The International Criminal Court comes into play if the state is unable or unwilling to prosecute this person or persons.