cairo —

According to the Israeli military, these were two basic errors.

First, police ignored a message detailing the vehicles in the convoy. Second, an observer saw someone boarding a vehicle carrying something – possibly a bag – which he believed to be a weapon. A series of Israeli drone strikes killed seven aid workers on dark roads in the Gaza Strip, officials said.

The Israeli military has called the deadly attack on the World Central Kitchen convoy a tragic mistake. Its explanation raises the question: If so, how often has Israel made such a mistake during its six-month offensive in Gaza?

Human rights groups and aid workers said Monday night’s mistake was not unusual. The broader issue, they say, is not violations of the military’s rules of engagement but the rules themselves.

In Israel’s campaign to dismantle Hamas in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks, the military appears to have given itself wide leeway in determining what targets to target and how many civilian deaths to allow as “collateral damage,” human rights groups and aid workers say .

More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Its count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Israel says it targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure and is trying to minimize civilian deaths. The report blamed a large number of civilian casualties on the militants, saying it was because they operated among the population. Israel says each attack is evaluated by legal experts but has not made public its rules of engagement.

other strikes

Of the thousands of strikes carried out by Israel, as well as shelling and gunfire in ground operations, there is no way of knowing how many times targets have been misidentified. Palestinian homes are attacked almost daily, with buildings razed to the ground and men, women and children killed, without any explanation of the targets or independent accountability for the proportionality of the attacks.

Sarit Michaeli, a spokesman for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, said the World Central Kitchen strike only attracted world attention because of the killings of foreigners.

“To think that this is a unique case, that this is a rare example – is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who has been paying attention to this situation,” she said.

She said a wider inquiry into rules of engagement was needed. “No relevant questions were raised because the investigation was into specific cases and not wider policy.”

Israel’s chief military spokesman Daniel Hagari acknowledged that “mistakes were made in the past six months.”

“We make every effort not to harm innocent civilians,” he told reporters. “It’s difficult because Hamas is in civilian clothes. … Is this a problem for us? Is it complicated? Yes. Does it matter? No. We need to do more and more things to distinguish.”

But the military has yet to specify how it will achieve this goal.

Brigadier General Benny Garr, who was involved in the World Central Kitchen strike inquiry, was asked whether more questions should have been asked before the strike was sanctioned.

“That’s not our standard,” he said. “The standard is more questions, more details, more cross-fertilization. But that’s not the case.”

white flag

Palestinian witnesses have repeatedly reported that people, including women and children, were shot to death or injured by Israeli troops holding white flags. Some videos showed Palestinians being shot or killed, but appeared to pose little threat to nearby Israeli forces.

In March, the military admitted that two Palestinians were shot dead and a third wounded while walking on a Gaza beach. Troops allegedly opened fire after the men ignored warnings. The company reacted after the Al Jazeera news channel showed footage of one of the men falling to the ground while walking in an open area before bulldozers pushed the two bodies into rubbish-strewn sand. At least two of the three men allegedly waved white flags.

Aid groups have also reported attacks on their personnel.

The Palestinian Medical Aid Organization said its residential complex in the southwestern area of ​​Muwah, which the military defines as a safe zone, was hit in January by what the United Nations deemed to be a 1,000-pound bomb. The organization said several team members were injured and the building was damaged.

The group said the Israeli military offered various explanations – denying involvement, saying it was trying to hit a nearby target and blaming a missile that went astray. “Responses have been diverse and highlight the continued lack of transparency,” the group said.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontières said the wife and daughter-in-law of one of its staff members were killed when a tank shelled a house in Moisy that was sheltering its staff and their families in February.

Both groups said they had informed the military of their locations multiple times and clearly marked the buildings.

Israel rarely admits mistakes.

An attack in the Magazi camp last December killed at least 106 people, and the military said buildings near the target were also hit, possibly causing “unintentional harm to more civilians who were not involved.” The statement also acknowledged that soldiers mistakenly shot and killed three Israeli hostages waving white flags after they were imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza City.

“model”

In Israel’s ground assault, troops operate in urban environments searching for Hamas militants while being surrounded by civilians sheltering in their homes or on the move, trying to flee or find food and medical care.

Some Israeli politicians and news media regularly claim that there are no innocents in Gaza. In some videos circulating online, soldiers talked of retaliating for the Hamas terror attack that sparked the war on October 7.

In this atmosphere, Palestinians and other critics say, soldiers on the ground appear to have broad latitude in deciding whether to target suspicious individuals. Residents and medical staff in Gaza say they are seeing the results.

Dr. Tanya Haji-Hassan, a doctor who provides medical aid to Palestinians and has just returned from two weeks in a Gaza hospital, said staff often treat children and the elderly shot by snipers.

“This is not an anomaly. This is actually a pattern,” she told reporters at a news conference this week. “I don’t think children are specifically singled out as targets. The understanding and conclusion you draw is that … everyone is a target.”

Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British Army and weapons expert who served on research and security missions in Gaza, said if there was a communications outage during a World Central Kitchen strike, “that would be inexcusable for a professional army.” . ”

“This completely reckless behavior appears to be a consistent pattern,” said Cobb-Smith, who helped investigate the Médecins Sans Frontières shelling.