Human Rights Watch says warnings were not issued before attacks, which have killed or injured dozens
Israeli forces have carried out at least eight strikes on humanitarian convoys and their facilities in Gaza since October, even after aid organisations provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
HRW said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not issue warnings to the aid organisations before the strikes, which killed or injured at least 31 people.
In one incident, on 1 April, seven aid workers were killed in drone strikes in the city of Deir al-Balah. Missiles hit a convoy of three World Central Kitchen (WCK) vehicles, two marked with the organisation’s logo on the roof and all carrying civilians. HRW said the convoy “was travelling a route that the organisation said they had agreed upon with the Israeli military”.
The IDF chief of general staff, Herzi Halevi, who attributed the strike to “misidentification”, said it “was not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers” and called it a mistake that should not have happened.
On 9 December, the Israeli navy fired 20mm cannon rounds at an Unrwa guesthouse consisting of two buildings in Rafah, the UN relief agency told HRW.
The attack occurred late in the evening while 10 staff were asleep inside. The agency said it had shared the coordinates of the guesthouse with Israeli authorities on a regular basis before the attack, including on the date of the attack, and was not aware of any military targets in the area at the time. Unrwa told HRW it received no warning of the attack.
In a third incident, on 8 January, an Israeli projectile pierced the side of a building in which more than 100 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff and their families were sheltering in Khan Younis.
