On the same day that Israeli F-35s launched missiles to kill several senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officers meeting in the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, an Israeli drone killed an Australian aid worker and six of her colleagues delivering food to Palestinians in northern Gaza.
In the Syrian operation, precise intelligence was used against secretive, high-value targets in a foreign country’s capital. In Gaza, by contrast, a clearly marked aid convoy was attacked in benign circumstances and the aid workers killed, for no apparent reason.
A photo that Zomi Frankcom sent her family just before her death this week.
When it wants to, Israel can launch a highly precise strike against sensitive targets at the same time as minimising civilian casualties. In January, for example, an Israeli missile smashed into a third-floor apartment in Beirut’s southern suburbs and killed Saleh Arouri, Hamas’ deputy political chief. Clean, precise. But in Gaza, Israel’s military is far less clean, far less precise. Indeed, far less disciplined.
Israel’s military chief has come out after a preliminary assessment was conducted and apologised for the death of the aid workers, saying it shouldn’t have happened, that it was a mistake that followed a misidentification, but added that it was at night, in a war, in very complex conditions. Yet the vehicles were clearly identified, the Israeli military was allegedly advised of the convoy’s........