ISRAEL has sacked two army commanders after aid workers including three Brits were killed in an IDF airstrike in Gaza this week.
The Israeli military admitted a cars carrying the charity workers were blasted as one of its units mistakenly thought Hamas terrorists were inside.
The wrecked car where aid workers were killed in an Israeli strike
John Chapman, former SBS hero, was among three Brits killed in an air strike while delivering aid in Gaza
Ex-Royal Marine James Henderson was also killed
The family of ex-sniper James Kirby said they were ‘incredibly proud’ of what he achieved
The IDF investigation said the second and third hits that followed were “grave mistakes”.
The deaths of the seven charity workers, which included three Brits, on Monday night sparked fury around the world.
A rogue IDF unit called in multiple drone strikes on a convoy of three aid vehicles, belonging to World Central Kitchen (WCK), travelling along Gaza’s coast road.
The three pinpoint hits killed seven aid workers who were delivering food aid to starving Gazans.
Among the victims were three Brits – former SBS special forces hero John Chapman, 57, ex-Royal Marine James Henderson, 33, and former Rifleman James Kirby, 47.
Also killed were an Australian, a Pole, an American-Palestinian and a Canadian-Palestinian.
After the incident, the IDF vowed to investigate – branding it a “grave mistake”.
Today, Israel said the convoy was “mistakingly targeted by IDF forces”.
An investigation determined that a colonel had authorised the series of deadly drone strikes based on one major’s observation from grainy drone-camera footage that someone in the convoy was armed.
That observation turned out to be untrue, IDF officials said
The army unit involved believed the vehicles they were tracking from above had been taken over by Hamas.
They were not aware of the coordination procedures put in place between the IDF and the WCK, according to the probe.
It said a drone operator mistook a charity staffer carrying a bag for a gunman before unleashing a missile on one of the cars.
Two people escaped the first vehicle and got into a second car, which was then blasted with another missile.
The IDF also said that some of the aid workers survived the initial air strikes – but were killed when the third car was hit.
The brigade fire support commander and the brigade chief of staff have been dismissed, the Israeli military confirmed.
A further three officers will be “formally reprimanded”.
The IDF said: “The investigation’s findings indicate that the incident should not have occurred.
“Those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives and not WCK employees.”
The IDF previously released a grovelling apology – saying the strikes were a result of “misidentification”.
Israel’s highest-ranking officer Herzi Halevi insisted: “Israel is at war with Hamas, not the people of Gaza.”
It comes after PM Rishi Sunak paid tribute to the three Brits – calling their deaths an “awful tragedy”.
The PM also demanded a massive increase in the amount of aid as he warned of the “increasingly intolerable” situation.
Mr Sunak told political editor Harry Cole on The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots: “It’s an awful, awful tragedy.
“To think these were brave Brits who were risking their lives to bring aid to people in need in Gaza… to have lost their lives in these circumstances is a tragedy. My thoughts obviously are with their families.”
He ramped up calls on Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for a “transparent independent investigation” into their deaths.
Mr Sunak told Netanyahu he was appalled by the strike and said Israel’s aim of defeating Hamas would not be achieved by allowing a humanitarian disaster.
EPAOne of WCK’s clearly marked aid trucks in the aftermath of the deadly strike[/caption]
The seven aid workers killed in the disaster
APBloodied UK, Polish and Australian passports were found in the wrecked cars[/caption]
The Sun’s Defence Editor’s analysis of the Middle East tinderbox
By Jerome Starkey, The Sun’s Defence Editor
FEARS that the Middle East could explode into all-out war are ratcheting up after Iran vowed vengeance for a deadly Israeli missile strike on its embassy in Damascus, the capital of Syria.
At least 11 people were killed when a consular annex was reduced to rubble by strikes which Iran says were carried out by Israeli F-35 fighter jets.
Now among those 11 killed were two top Iranian generals, Brigadier Mohammed Reza Zahidi, who we understand commanded Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, and Brigadier Mohammed Haji Rahimi.
Also among the dead is a representative of the Hezbollah terrorist group Hussein Yusuf.
Both Iran and Hezbollah have vowed vengeance, with Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi saying this strike will not go unanswered.
The suggestion is that perhaps Israel has crossed a threshold with a strike on an embassy.
Embassies are sovereign soil of the nations they belong to, so this was a strike on sovereign Iranian soil in Syria and in one sense it is an escalation and the concerns that this could spiral out are in many ways well founded.
Interestingly we’ve heard reports in the local media in Syria and in the region that America appears to be distancing itself from this strike, officials saying they had no advanced knowledge.
It would appear that the reason for this missile strike was the meeting between these Revolutionary Guard commanders and the representatives of Hezbollah.
We will now have to wait and see how Iran chooses to take its revenge.
Now of course, if you are an Israeli diplomat living abroad, then you may well think that you are now more of a target.
Because Israel has targeted an Iranian embassy, we may expect to see the possibility that Iran may target Israeli diplomats or missions around the world.
And we have just seen, in the last few days suspected Iranian agents attacking an Iranian journalist here in London.
Tehran is showing, perhaps by this stabbing that it maintains the ability and the capability to attack people it sees as critical of the regime enemies of the regime around the world.
Some context that we understand that Tehran employs criminal proxies to carry out that sort of dirty work doesn’t necessarily have the same sort of sophisticated overseas operations that we might expect of other hostile actors like Russia.
But nonetheless, I think in the wake of what happened in Damascus on Monday, combined with what’s been happening across the region in recent months, there is concern and anxiety to see how Iran responds and what that will elicit from Israel.
