The ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee called Israel’s decision not to pursue a criminal investigation of a 2024 Gaza strike that killed seven humanitarian workers “a miscarriage of justice.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said on Friday that the move “exemplifies” that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has waged this war, causing maximum destruction in Gaza with minimal accountability.”
The Israel Defense Forces described the strike that hit a World Central Kitchen convoy as “a serious mistake and failure.”
An Israeli military examination of the incident “identified operational failures and took significant command and disciplinary measures,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.
It added that the decision not to pursue a criminal investigation “was made by Israel’s independent military prosecution authorities on the basis of strict professional and legal considerations.”
The legal threshold required for initiating a criminal investigation, which amounts to “reasonable suspicion for criminal misconduct,” was not met, the ministry said.
“Israel, which is deeply committed to international law, subjects its military operations to rigorous legal scrutiny, including standards that exceed those applied by many Western armed forces in recent conflicts,” it said.
DeLauro said that “humanitarian aid workers must be certain of their safety in order to do their jobs and help alleviate this crisis, but Israel’s refusal to properly investigate this attack undermines that trust.”
She added that Gaza “has only recently recovered from a state of famine.”
The claim of a famine having taken place in Gaza, largely drawn from projections from a United Nations-aligned food security agency that were never met, has been repeatedly debunked.
JNS asked DeLauro’s office how she thinks Israel can better ensure the safety of humanitarian workers, given growing documentation, provided by Hamas and other Gazan terrorist groups that many humanitarian and medical workers and journalists were actually operatives of those terrorist organizations.
