The Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM) is expected to conduct an independent investigation.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFUpdated: MARCH 8, 2024 09:58IDF infographic that displays the locations of IDF troops during the convoy disaster incident. March 8, 2024.(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)
The IDF submitted its findings on Friday regarding the humanitarian aid convoy catastrophe late last month wherein dozens of Palestinians were killed in a giant crush while attempting to get aid.
The Commanding Officer of the Southern Command, MG Yaron Finkelman, presented the findings of the command review regarding the sequence of events to the Chief of the General Staff, LTG Herzi Halevi, on Tuesday.
The command review found that IDF troops did not fire at the humanitarian convoy but did fire at a number of suspects who approached the nearby forces and posed a threat to them.
The command review reveals that while the trucks were traveling toward the distribution centers, a crowd of about 12,000 Gazans gathered around them and looted the equipment they were transporting.
IDF launched warning shots against looters
Amidst looting, dozens of Gazans also advanced toward IDF troops posing threats to forces standing by, leading to cautionary fire for deterrence purposes.
Palestinians carry bags of flour they grabbed from an aid truck near an Israeli checkpoint, as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, February 19, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/Kosay Al Nemer/File Photo)
The investigation is expected to be continued by an independent examination body, the Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM). FFAM is expected to independently come to conclusions on the incident.
Joanie Margulies and Keshet Neev contributed to this report.
US president says Israel has right to go after Hamas, but laments majority killed in Gaza weren’t terrorists, says two states only way to guarantee Israeli security, Saudi deal
US President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, Thursday March 7, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
US President Joe Biden lamented the “deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust” in his Thursday State of the Union address, defending Israel’s right to pursue Hamas after the terror group’s October 7 terror onslaught, while expressing his dissatisfaction with the humanitarian toll in the ensuing war.
“To the leadership of Israel, I say this: humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority,” Biden said, as Washington continued to stiffen its tone with Israel while maintaining its overall support for the Jewish state.
Much of Biden’s speech focused on domestic issues, arriving at the Gaza conflict toward the end.
“I know the last five months have been gut-wrenching for so many people, for the Israeli people, the Palestinian people, and so many here in America,” Biden said.
The president recalled the Hamas “massacre” that killed some 1,200 Israelis and saw 253 abducted into Gaza, and he made a point to highlight the sexual violence endured by some of the victims, just days after the UN published a report confirming many of these well-documented crimes.
He took a moment to highlight the dozen-plus family members of the hostages who were in the congressional chamber as guests of lawmakers.
“I pledge to all the families that we will not rest until we bring their loved ones home,” he said.
Biden pointed to the ongoing effort to secure a six-week ceasefire, which would see the female, sick and elderly hostages released in the first stage and allow humanitarian aid to surge into Gaza where there are growing concerns of mass famine.
Biden reportedly dispatched his CIA chief, Bill Burns, back to the region in a last-ditch effort to try and secure a hostage deal by Ramadan, which begins early next week. Burns was in Egypt for talks on Wednesday and Thursday before traveling to Doha.
To the leadership of Israel, I say this: humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority
US officials said earlier Thursday that Hamas was holding the deal up by refusing to release the vulnerable hostages it is holding, but they said mediators would work through the weekend to try and secure a deal.
“Hamas could end this conflict today by releasing the hostages, laying down arms, and surrendering those responsible for October 7,” Biden said.
“We’ve been working non-stop to establish an immediate ceasefire that would last for at least six weeks,” he continued. “It would get the hostages home, ease the intolerable humanitarian crisis, and build toward something more enduring.”
While Biden asserted that “Israel has a right to go after Hamas,” he clarified that it “has an added burden because Hamas hides and operates among the civilian population.”
“This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed. Most of whom are not Hamas,” he lamented.
“Thousands and thousands are innocent women and children. Girls and boys also orphaned. Nearly 2 million more Palestinians under bombardment or displaced. Homes destroyed, neighborhoods in rubble, cities in ruin. Families without food, water, medicine. It’s heartbreaking.”
To help address the growing humanitarian need, Biden made an anticipated announcement that he had directed the US military to carry out an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier “on the Gaza coast” that will allow for the delivery of aid to the enclave directly from the Mediterranean.
He stressed that the effort would not require any US boots on the ground and said it would allow Gaza’s coast to receive large ships carrying aid that to date had to dock in Egypt.
“This temporary pier would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day,” he said. “But Israel must also do its part. Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and ensure that humanitarian workers aren’t caught in the crossfire,” Biden stressed.
Turning to his broader vision for the Mideast after the war, Biden reiterated that “the only real solution is a two-state solution.”
“I say this as a lifelong supporter of Israel and the only American president to visit Israel in wartime,” he added.
“There is no other path that guarantees Israel’s security and democracy. There is no other path that guarantees Palestinians can live with peace and dignity. There is no other path that guarantees peace between Israel and all of its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia,” Biden added, referencing a diplomatic initiative that would sea Riyadh normalize relations with Israel and assist in the reconstruction of Gaza on the condition that Israel allows for a reformed Palestinian Authority to return to governing Gaza and agrees to establish a pathway to an eventual Palestinian state.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has all but rejected this effort, angering Biden, whose aides warn that the premier is laying the groundwork for an open-ended Israeli occupation of Gaza, given that it has failed to advance viable alternatives to Hamas’s rule.
Turning to Tehran, Biden said “creating stability in the Middle East also means containing the threat posed by Iran.”
“That’s why I built a coalition of more than a dozen countries to defend international shipping and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea,” he said, referencing attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen that have disrupted global shipping routes. Their strikes turned deadly for the first time this week, with three crew members killed in an attack on a vessel off the Gulf of Aden.
“I’ve ordered strikes to degrade Houthi capabilities and defend US Forces in the region,” Biden said. “As commander-in-chief, I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and military personnel.”
The name of David Cameron, Britain’s foreign secretary, is on course to become a synonym for infamy in Britain’s Jewish community to rival that of Ernest Bevin.
Bevin was Britain’s foreign secretary after World War II who took the side of the Arabs in their attempt to thwart the creation of a Jewish state. He imposed severe repressive measures against Palestine’s Jewish leadership and denied the Jewish remnants of the Nazi Holocaust entry into the land, sending the ship Exodus, carrying 4,500 Jewish refugees, back to Germany.
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This week, Bevin’s successor Lord Cameron delivered an astonishing dressing-down to Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz, who stopped off in London after talks in America.
In a statement about the meeting, Cameron said he had once again pressed Israel to “increase the flow of aid” into Gaza to address its “devastating and growing humanitarian crisis.” He demanded “an immediate humanitarian pause,” increased access for aid and distribution capacity and provision for “shelter and items critical for infrastructure repair.”
He declared that the U.K. government was “deeply concerned” about the prospect of a military offensive in Rafah. And then he issued a threat.
“The U.K. supports Israel’s right to self-defense,” he began. “But as the occupying power in Gaza, Israel has a legal responsibility to ensure aid is available for civilians. That responsibility has consequences, including when we as the U.K. assess whether Israel is compliant with international humanitarian law.”
What breathtaking arrogance and malice. How dare Cameron presume to dictate to Israel how to conduct this desperate war for its survival?
Israel isn’t “the occupying power” in Gaza. It is fighting a war there to defend the lives of its people against a genocidal enemy. How dare Cameron demand Israel take measures to weaken that defense through allowing in “items for infrastructure repair”—such as, presumably, the concrete and other building materials used by Hamas to construct its infernal underground infrastructure of terror and mass murder?
And if Israel doesn’t thus sabotage its attempt to destroy Hamas, the U.K. is threatening to destroy the Jewish state at the U.N. Cameron himself said at the end of January that the U.K. was considering recognition of a Palestinian state as a way of pressuring Israel to accept a “two-state solution” after a ceasefire in Gaza.
In other words, unless Israel agrees to allow Hamas to survive, the U.K. will do two things: It will throw the Jewish state to the Hamas-supporting wolves at the U.N. and force into existence a terrorist entity that would put Israel’s heartlands in danger of Oct. 7-style pogroms on steroids.
Similar pressure on Israel has come from the Biden administration. Last weekend, Vice-President Kamala Harris said, “The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses.”
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller claimed this week that Israeli government ministers were “obstacles” to aid by blocking the release of flour from the port of Ashdod and supporting protests that blocked supplies from the Kerem Shalom crossing point.
It would seem that Israel’s principal allies in the U.K. and U.S. are determined to ensure that Israel doesn’t defeat Hamas, and are actually serving as a megaphone for the terror group’s distorted and manipulative claims of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
Certainly, there is death and suffering among the civilian population. This is horrible and deeply regrettable as the inevitable consequence of war. But the scale of the crisis is being hysterically exaggerated.
On January 30, CNN reported: “Palestinians are eating grass and drinking polluted water as famine looms across Gaza.” Yet on the same day, COGAT, which coordinates Israeli government activities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, published a video of Gazans queuing up at a plentiful shawarma stand in Rafah.
Social media footage has shown well-stocked Rafah markets. There have also been videos of Gazans contemptuously throwing air-dropped ready-to-eat meals into the trash.
Some Israeli politicians and members of the public, maddened by the perception that the aid is helping Hamas, have been trying to stop it from getting into Gaza. But contrary to the Americans’ implication, these protests are countered by the government and have been largely ineffective.
COGAT says that, over the past two weeks, almost 50% more food trucks have been entering Gaza than before the start of the war. On Wednesday, it says, 257 trucks entered. Over the past few days, more than 100 trucks were transferred to the northern part of the Strip. Over the past two weeks, the number of operational bakeries went up from 10 to 20, providing more than 2.5 million breads per day to the population.
From the start of the war, more than 750 packages of humanitarian aid have been delivered—mostly to northern Gaza—by 25 airdrops mounted by an alliance of Israel, the U.S., the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and France (not, note, with the participation of Cameron’s Britain).
So Cameron’s suggestion that Israel is not fulfilling its legal responsibility to provide aid for civilians is utterly false. Israel is indeed doing so. The problems start once the aid arrives.
Israel says there is no limit to the number of aid trucks being allowed into Gaza. There are instead hold-ups at the crossing points because the U.N. is struggling to distribute the aid. And that’s because it uses the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA—which is controlled by Hamas.
The result is that Hamas hijacks the trucks and steals the food and other supplies, either for itself or to sell to the population on the black market.
On social media, there are videos of aid trucks being commandeered by armed men. There are also videos of Egyptian drivers warning others not to drive aid trucks into Gaza because they are being attacked with rocks hurled through their windscreens, leaving some badly injured and even killed.
Even U.S. officials are admitting that Hamas is stealing the aid that the Biden administration is accusing Israel of failing to provide.
One senior official told journalists that the problem was with distribution once the 250 to 300 truckloads of assistance got into Gaza. He said: “This is a product of, if you will, commercialization of the assistance; criminal gangs are taking it, looting it, reselling it. They’ve monetized humanitarian assistance. … The food is there; it’s coming in.”
Other officials have confirmed that Hamas is involved in aid distribution.
David Satterfield, the senior U.S. diplomat involved in humanitarian assistance for Gaza, acknowledged that police escorts for aid deliveries include Hamas members, and that Hamas has been using other aid delivery channels to “shape where and to whom assistance goes.”
In the remorseless attempt to demonize Israel, humanitarian aid has become the blood libel of the day. When dozens of Palestinians were reportedly killed last month as thousands stampeded aid trucks entering Gaza City, the incident was falsely blamed on Israeli fire—even though the IDF shot at no one other than a few Gazans who threatened to attack them.
Social media is teeming with distressing images of Gazan babies who have allegedly been starved to death by Israel. Even if all these images are genuine, it isn’t Israel but Hamas that’s responsible by stealing the food intended for civilians.
Israel is being scapegoated for the war crimes of Hamas. Scapegoating the Jews is the consistent and defining motif of antisemitism through the ages.
It is also precisely what Cameron and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken are doing. As a result, they are giving substance to the “genocide in Gaza” blood libel and stoking yet further attacks on Jews.
Israel’s media spokesman Eylon Levy said this week: “We will accept being scapegoated no longer.” Israel isn’t on its knees. The Jews of Britain and America should get up from theirs and publicly tell Cameron and Blinken the same thing.
