• In short: Israel has taken responsibility for a series of air strikes that killed several aid workers, including Australian Lalzawmi "Zomi" Frankcom, in Gaza earlier this week.
• The Israeli military says it was a "grave mistake" and "misidentification" was to blame.
• What's next: Their bodies will be taken to Egypt, and World Central Kitchen, the organisation where the people worked, says it's suspending operations in the besieged territory.

The Israeli air strike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza, including Australian Lalzawmi "Zomi" Frankcom, was a "mistake that followed a misidentification," the Israeli military says.

Ms Frankcom, as well as Palestinians and citizens of the UK, Poland and a dual US-Canadian national, were working for the charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) when an Israeli air strike hit their convoy on Monday night, local time.

The Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, said in a video statement on Wednesday that he had been presented with preliminary findings from an inquiry into the incident.

"The strike was not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers," he said.

"It was a mistake that followed a misidentification — at night, during a war, in very complex conditions. It shouldn't have happened."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-03/world-central-kitchen-blast-australian-dead-netanyahu-reacts/103660170

PULL THE OTHER LEG, IT RINGS... "THEY" MISTAKEN THE DAMASCUS IRANIAN CONSULATE FOR A KINDERGARTEN, AS WELL...

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By Joe Lauria
in London
Special to Consortium News

Pressure is growing on the British government to stop arming Israel after a leaked audio recording revealed that it is ignoring the advice of its own lawyers that Israel is breaking international humanitarian law and that Britain is in danger of also violating international law by continuing to ship Israel arms.  

The leaked remarks were made by Alicia Kearns MP, Conservative chair of the House of Commons select committee on foreign affairs, at a March 13 Tory fundraising event and first published by The Observeron Saturday.  

In the leaked tape, Kearns says: “The Foreign Office has received official legal advice that Israel has broken international humanitarian law but the Government has not announced it. They have not said it, they haven’t stopped arms exports.“

Kearns defended her published remarks, telling the newspaper: 

“I remain convinced the government has completed its updated assessment on whether Israel is demonstrating a commitment to international humanitarian law, and that it has concluded that Israel is not demonstrating this commitment, which is the legal determination it has to make. Transparency at this point is paramount, not least to uphold the international rules-based order.” 

It is illegal under British law to export arms which could be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law.

The Observer reported: “The revelation will place [Foreign Secretary] Lord Cameron and prime minister Rishi Sunak under intense pressure because any such legal advice would mean the UK had to cease all arms sales to Israel without delay. Legal experts said that not to do so would risk putting the UK in breach of international law itself, as it would be seen as aiding and abetting war crimes by a country it was exporting arms to.”

‘Must Come Clean’

A Foreign Office spokesman told The Independent newspaper: “We keep advice on Israel’s adherence to international humanitarian law under review and ministers act in accordance with that advice, for example when considering export licences. The content of the Government’s advice is confidential.” 

Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Cameron and Sunak should “’come clean” and “publish the legal advice they have received,” The Independent reported. The leaked comments raise “serious questions about whether the Government is complying with its own law,” Lammy said.

Stephen Flynn, leader of the Scottish National Party in Parliament,  blasted the government for being “on the wrong side of history” and said Sunak and Cameron “owe it to the public and to the high offices they currently hold to be honest about whether they have received advice that Israel has breached international humanitarian law,” the newspaper reported.

“If reports are to be believed, and the UK Government has continued to supply arms and intelligence to Israel whilst knowing they were in breach of international humanitarian law, then the position of both would be untenable,” Flynn said.   

In the leaked tape, Kearns says Israel’s 

“right to self-defence has a limit in law. It is not limitless. Some of the ways in which Israel is prosecuting this is making their long-term security less certain. It is making our long-term security less certain. I’m amazed that our national threat level has not gone up. And it breaks my heart because I know it could be done differently.”

[See: “The Revenge to Come,” CN, As’ad AbuKhalil.] 

The Ramifications

The revelation shows a significant crack within the ruling party in Britain on supporting Israel no matter what it does in Gaza.  It is an additional sign that Western support for Israel’s genocide is on increasingly shaky ground.  

The news of the British government ignoring legal advice against further arming Israel has been ignored in most media outside the U.K., though it has clear implications for nations like Germany, France, Canada, Australia (ABC reported it) and above all, the United States, who are heavily arming Israel to carry out its genocide. 

As the British government is trying to publicly ignore its own legal advice that is now publicly known, these governments and their attendant corporate medias are trying to ignore the British leak, lest it should lead to debate within their own countries about the legality of continuing to arm a genocidal state. As it is, Joe Biden is facing tough electoral prospects in November since 70 percent of his own party rejects his Gaza policy. 

British barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice told The Observer: “Countries supplying arms to Israel may now be complicit in criminal warfare. The public should be told what the advice says.”

Immediately ending arms shipments to Israel is imperative, but it could not undo these governments’ six-month long complicity in the most horrific of crimes. 

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/04/02/uk-ignores-its-lawyers-warnings-on-arms-to-israel/

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Weaponising a real fear in the West of being called or being seen as “antisemitic”, while simultaneously exploiting long-entrenched anti-Arab prejudice, the Israeli government has successfully exempted itself from legitimate interrogation, reproach and effective sanctions for its unchecked expansionist ambitions and inhumane, racist actions against Palestinians.

The oldest newspaper in Israel is Haaretz, published daily in both Hebrew and English and widely accessible online. Haaretz journalists are to be commended for taking what has become a uniquely courageous public stance, covering at least some of the immeasurable harm being caused by Israel to Palestinians in Gaza and (increasingly) on the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

A week ago, Haaretz writer David Rothkopf published this call:

The fighting in Gaza must stop. Not tomorrow. Today.

All available resources must immediately be directed to stopping the unprecedented famine that is underway in that embattled sliver of land that has already seen unspeakable suffering. As bad as the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 was, the people and government of Israel must now recognise that today not just the country’s security but its legitimacy are at stake as never before.

Reports, however, are closer to what we routinely read locally and internationally where the unchecked “right” of Israel to solely determine the fate of Palestinian lives is taken as a given. Meaningful self-determination for Palestinians is, in this now entrenched Western narrative, aberrant.

This factual report does not reflect on Haaretz, but rather on the normalisation of the profound chasm in basic human rights between Jewish Israelis and their Palestinian neighbours. (I have taken the liberty of emphasising in bold where we might pause to consider the implications of what is reported here, and the horrors the writers at least partially and probably unconsciously mask).

The article begins: “We [the German Government] thank Israel for this important humanitarian gesture.” The headline reads:

“Israel Temporarily Evacuates 68 Palestinian Orphans From Rafah to West Bank at Germany’s Request”

68 Palestinian children, along with 11 caretakers, were evacuated from an orphanage in Rafah, Gaza Strip, to Bethlehem in the West Bank as part of a humanitarian operation approved by Israel, the German Embassy in Tel Aviv announced on Tuesday.

According to the embassy, the evacuation aimed to immediately remove the children from “acute” danger and is temporary and is not intended as a permanent relocation. The IDF conducted the evacuation under the instructions of the Israeli government.

The statement expressed gratitude to Israel for this “important humanitarian gesture.”

In the embassy’s statement, it was mentioned that in November, the ‘SOS Children’s Villages’ organisation reached out to Germany’s Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, seeking assistance for their branch in Rafah. “We are relieved that our efforts were successful,” the statement read, “and we want to thank everyone involved.”

Additionally, it was stated that “Germany continues to stand by Israel in its fight against Hamas,” and remains committed to releasing all hostages and providing humanitarian relief for Gaza’s civilians.

https://johnmenadue.com/weaponising-antisemitism-impede-justice-and-peace/

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it's time for being earnest.....