April 5, 2024 Israel-Gaza updates

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations has accused Israel of deliberately targeting the World Central Kitchen staff killed by a strike in Gaza this week.

"The killing of the aid workers from the World Central Kitchen is not an isolated incident," the ambassador, Riyad Mansour, said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday.

"Israel knew very well who it was targeting, hitting three cars in three locations, despite the fact that they were identifiable and had gotten coordinated with Israel," Mansour added.

The ambassador said "it took the deaths of foreigners" for the international community to acknowledge the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza over the past 180 days. The strike killed one Palestinian, three Britons, a US-Canadian dual citizen, an Australian and a Pole, according to the organization.

Israeli report: On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces published a report into the killings, which it said violated its own protocols and should not have happened.

The report found that IDF forces "mistakenly assumed" there were Hamas gunmen traveling in the aid convoy and opened fire on the vehicles.

The WCK has called for further independent investigations, saying the IDF cannot be trusted to “investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

Read more about the IDF report.

John Kelly, the appointed US representative to the UN, highlighted the urgent need for the protection of humanitarian personnel in conflict zones in the wake of the Israeli drone strikes on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza.

“We are deeply concerned Israel has not done enough to protect humanitarian aid workers or civilians,” Kelly told a UN Security Council meeting Friday.

“An incident such as this should never have happened and must never happen again. We all know moreover, this was not a stand-alone incident,” Kelly added.

His comments come as Israel’s military fired two senior officers after a report released Friday concluded that the attack that killed seven food aid workers in Gaza was a result of "mistaken identification" and "serious violations" of standard procedure.

Hamas has turned down Israel’s latest counterproposal from earlier this week, a diplomat familiar with the discussions said.

Earlier this week an Israeli proposal had been sent to Hamas which the diplomat said did not accept two key Hamas demands: that there be unrestricted return of Gazans to the north and the pullback of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan on Thursday said their position has not changed since delivering these two key demands to mediators on March 14. Hamdan said the last round of talks held in Egypt this week have not yielded “any progress."

The diplomat says Israel continued to insist that inspections of those moving north be allowed and that the IDF not redeploy away from central Gaza.

CIA Director William Burns, Israel’s Mossad Director David Barnea and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar will meet in Egypt this weekend to continue ceasefire talks, according to a source familiar with the talks and an Israeli government official source. Barnea, Bar and Burns met last month in Doha for talks with mediators, but no clear breakthrough was reached.

Hamas and Israel have for months failed to agree over a three-phased framework seeking the release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a six-week ceasefire, the release of Palestinian prisoners and an increase in humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Mostafa Salem contributed reporting to this post.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged Israel’s government on Friday to “quickly implement” its plans to reopen the Erez land crossing and port of Ashdod to allow more aid into Gaza, saying there are “no more excuses.”

Both crossings are expected to reopen this weekend, CNN earlier reported. US President Joe Biden pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu to allow more aid into Gaza in a phone call on Thursday.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that while the Israeli government has admitted mistakes in the killing of seven aid workers earlier this week, there must be independent investigations and “meaningful” change on the ground.

In remarks delivered Friday in New York, Guterres said that “the essential problem is not who made the mistakes” in the killing of the World Central Kitchen staff, but the “military procedures in place that allow for those mistakes to multiply time and time again.”

Guterres also said that he was “deeply troubled" by reports that the Israeli military’s bombing campaign involved Artificial Intelligence as a tool in the identification of targets.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s week began with the chants of thousands of protesters demanding a hostage deal and early elections outside the Knesset and his official residence. It ended with a scolding from US President Joe Biden over the Israeli military’s killing of seven humanitarian aid workers and the rapidly spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

In between, the Israeli prime minister’s chief political rival and war cabinet member raised his voice in support of early elections for the first time, ratcheting up the political pressure. And yet, Netanyahu’s grip on power doesn’t appear to be in any imminent danger of slipping away.

Even as the walls appear to be closing in and a majority of Israelis continue to disapprove of Netanyahu’s performance, the mounting international and domestic political pressure has yet to fundamentally change the dynamics of his governing coalition – whose collapse would trigger new elections – nor his willingness to remain in office.

Read more about Netanyahu's grip on power despite obstacles.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has issued a warning about the grim situation pregnant women and mothers face in Gaza, amid the collapse of health care in the territory.

With nearly six months of ongoing conflict, these vulnerable groups are struggling to survive, confronting acute shortages of food, water, and medical care, along with the looming threat of famine.

According to the IRC since October 7:

Arvind Das, IRC's team lead for the Gaza crisis, said women are now forced to give birth in makeshift conditions, among ruins or in overcrowded shelters, due to the unavailability of medical care. The shortage of electricity, medication, medical equipment, and personnel, compounded by Israeli restrictions on aid, has critically undermined healthcare delivery in Gaza, Das said.

The US received Israel’s report on the deadly strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza and is “reviewing it very carefully,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.

“We'll be discussing its conclusions with Israeli officials and with humanitarian organizations in the days to come,” Blinken added. The top US diplomat noted that “even more important is making sure that steps are taken going forward to ensure that something like this can never happen again.”

Blinken earlier Friday called for an “independent, thorough, and fully publicized investigation” into the Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers. Blinken reiterated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated to President Joe Biden that Israel would be "making further changes to its procedures to make sure that those who are providing assistance to people who so desperately need it in Gaza are protected.” 

“So we're going to be looking very carefully at what those steps are, how it achieves better deconfliction, better coordination, so that aid workers are protected,” he added.

An Israeli hostage on October 7 was likely killed by fire from an Israeli combat helicopter that was firing at a vehicle with militants, an Israeli Air Force investigation has found.

Israeli Efrat Katz was likely killed when an Israeli helicopter struck the vehicle that the 67-year-old was in together with other hostages and militants. The Israeli military fired at the vehicle without knowing that hostages were in the vehicle alongside the militants, according to the Air Force investigation. The findings were presented to Katz’s family and the families of the hostages involved in the incident Friday.

Katz was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, southern Israel by militants from Gaza. Nir Oz is roughly 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the Gaza border. The investigation into her death was carried out by an air force team and was based on witness testimony and video footage. It was conducted alongside “in-depth examinations of all the combat incidents” on October 7.

The IDF called the incident a “tragic and unfortunate event that took place in the midst of fighting and conditions of uncertainty.” The commander of the air force “did not find fault in the operation by the helicopter crew, who operated in compliance with the orders in a complex reality of war,” the IDF added.