IDF conclude their investigation into aid worker killings | LBC breaking

Steve is in Burges Hill Steve, what would you like to say? Hello, good morning James, thank you for taking my call. I would just like to raise a couple of points about the use of lethal force, from the perspective of an ex-UK serviceman as well. I'm currently a humanitarian aid security advisor, so I do the kind of work that the three men killed in Gaza were doing, yes, precisely, yes, okay, thanks, so take the first one, use of legal for that in any type of military rules. The commitment, you know, is driven at us through, you know, repetitive training, we have to use minimal force to save a life, so the only time you know you would normally try to take a life was just to save the life of someone else, okay? and that's where minimum force comes into play so every time there's a deliberate firing action it's intentional with respect to that so you know every time you point a gun or you know a larger type of ammunition that goes to do something to uh to save lives are, you know, the consequences of that, so the very strict criteria that we have to meet, you know, in conflicts as well as in peacetime, yeah, that's really the first point from the perspective of someone you know who carries a gun in an environmental theater um moving on to the other side the humanitarian side and in terms of what happened with the international um the ik I don't remember the acronym kitchen um what happened to them the other day It was Once again, from my personal perspective, what they did was a completely intentional act.

They were definitely not using minimum force because if they were trying to use some kind of minimum force, they could have intercepted

their

vehicles using some of

their

ground units. They had their eyes on the cars all the time, before they faced the airstrikes, in order to send the Mu, they sent some units, stopped the vehicles, took the people out, checked who was in them, let them go in their way and If there were any terrorists inside, they could have stopped them without killing anyone. They were also given the coordinates of the trip and the IDF had been given the coordinates of the trip.

Absolutely that and this is where I put my other hat more or less, as a security advisor, that's what we have to do in these types of environments, so you know, our first asset is our people, our teams, because without them You know help doesn't work. not at all, so we have to protect them, which is why we implement all our control measures to prevent such incidents from happening, so that when we go on a clear route, for example, we know that it will be safe from any unforeseen events. and if I can make comparisons to other types of theaters that we work in, whether it's Somalia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, yeah, you know, we normally have a fixed number of threats and they're Bas, they're basically the same, so there could be al-shabab, this could be bakah Haram, it could be the Taliban for example, but we know what to expect with these, the difference is with this case, particularly this case inside Gaza, um, this week it was the traditional threats that We normally protect ourselves.

Yes, that was not what got these people killed, it was the Israel Defense Force that got them killed. Now we literally have no way to protect ourselves from that because normally in the countries where we operate, the security forces and the local police are the people who are there to guarantee our protection and this has been reversed in this case and that is what simultaneously you know up to and including the former prime minister of Israel. I keep reading that they have done more than any other military in history to minimize civilian casualties and ensure that operations are conducted with the preservation of life as a priority at all times, even when numbers and analyzes like yours suggest the polar opposite. : it is a difficult situation. clearly and clearly it's also not true because I said this to your colleague also ironically and please don't criticize me for saying this, but ironically I would feel safe for our teams currently operating in Afghanistan right now because we know that security has been controlled by the Taliban and although they have other risks that they pose, what they don't do is not shoot us directly and don't throw bombs at us, we have other risks associated with them, but they are definitely not those that humanitarian

worker

s in the Strip face. from Gaza right now and then to a lesser extent in the West Bank, are some of the people who are there. to prevent us from being attacked by terrorists let's say Yes, there is nothing you can do about it, nothing you can do and they are causing us a bigger problem.

Yes, Steve, thank you. I'm going to move on because I have some

breaking

news that is almost unbearably opposite, in fact, I spoke earlier with Michael, who was in Tel Aviv, and I suggested that I came pretty close to suggesting that I wouldn't be surprised if the IDF claimed that they thought that They were Hamas terrorists. in this Convoy very soon I can't I couldn't see I didn't say it out loud because it may have been a little irresponsible but I couldn't see any way out of reality except to raise the possibility that oh no We thought there were some terrorists in that aid convoy .

I can tell you that in the last few minutes the Israel Defense Forces issued a statement saying that they believed there was a Hamas gunman. Well, I'll read it. For you, the event occurred on April 1, 2024 during an operation to transfer humanitarian aid from the global Community Kitchen to the Gaza Strip. The

investigation

found that forces identified a gunman in one of the aid trucks, following which they identified an additional gunman after the vehicles left the warehouse where the aid had been unloaded. One of the commanders mistakenly assumed that the gunman was inside the accompanying vehicles and that they were Hamas terrorists.

Forces did not identify the vehicles in question as being associated with World Community Kitchen following a misidentification. by the forces, remember they have been given the coordinates of the trip, the forces targeted the three dump vehicles based on the misclassification of the event and the misidentification that the vehicles had Hamas operatives inside them, with the resulting attack that led to the deaths of seven innocent humanitarian aid

worker

s The attacks on the three vehicles were carried out in gross violation of IDF commands and standard operating procedures, therefore this is not from the actual statement. The IDF has said it suspended senior officials of the unit involved in the incident. of Duty, so I'm afraid that based on our previous definition of caller, it would be filed as collateral damage because if they say oh no, we thought there was a terrorist in the car, then it becomes somehow justifiable.

Dave suggests that the IDF is trolling. all over the world now, but the speed with which that happened so soon after I alluded to the possibility of it happening the statement oh no, we thought there was an IDF person in the car, the speed is quite disconcerting, actually, It is not like this? It's 11:43 I'll make one more call about this and then, of course, we'll meet with the young woman who just got out of prison after refusing to fight or serve in the IDF. An 18-year-old woman, Zara is in the soul. Zara, what would you like to say?

Good morning, James, hell, I think hello, um, I think basically for me, having heard all of this as it all goes on, you know, it's becoming increasingly clear that Netanyahu's sole goal or sole purpose was complete eradication if not There is no one left, then there will be no one else who hates, hates Israel or blames Israel for the death of their parents or their brothers or anything else like that. You know, that could only be logically. You know his ultimate goal and the reason for it. The reason the world has sat back and watched is because over the past 30 years there has been a systematic dehumanization of the Palestinian people in particular and Muslims in general.

That has helped, although I want to say that there was also inhumane activity on October 7. in Israel, which is a big part of the international response, in fact, the insufficiency perhaps of the international response, but we can't ignore that Zara doesn't, but I think what happens when it comes to things like this is that you can't overlook that and you know, go back to those old sayings and say two wrongs don't make a right because then other people will turn around and say well, actually you have October 7th, but let's look back at it all the course of this conflict, you know, going back to the 1940s, where do you want to stop it?

It's going to be a case of one-upmanship all the time, you know, which is another reason why people who simultaneously ignore the fact that we repeatedly mention Hamas and the hostages and claim that the conversation is and unfairly ignore Hamas and the hostages is so false because as you remember and as the callers earlier, um notably, I think in the clues and and and um and others, you this The problem did not start on October 7th, so you know the idea that you can have a conversation Pretending that it was, she's a little naive, isn't she?

That's all, you know what it is and it's not going to end on October 7th. because now I, as a mother, you know, I have my eight and nine year old children coming to me and saying mom, why don't people like Muslims, mom, why do they call us terrorists and the Jewish moms did it too the Jewish ladies, of course, but it's a case where you know when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when will this stop, you know, I, I, I think, ultimately, I think, ultimately Ultimately, I think, and for me, one of the things is that people talk about two state solutions and this. and that and the other, but if there is ever going to be, because the state of Israel has complete control over Gaza, it is not autonomous, you know, they do not have access to its borders, they do not have access to its energy supply, nor to your water supply.

Your public services, even your food, everything has to come through Israel, so if we had that kind of enclave here in the UK, could you imagine? If we weren't all governed by the same set of laws and everything the rest. If the whole country just gives it a new name, I don't know, call it whatever you want and makes everyone a citizen and everyone equal, that will be the only way to fix this, yeah, although God knows what would happen if you did that. Tomorrow I agree with you that that seems good. I have said it many times that there are three outcomes here: either one side eradicates the other or the other side eradicates the other or both sides somehow find a way to live in peace and harmony.

Don't forget you could be suspended from the Labor Party, you could be suspended from the K st Labor Party for calling for Palestinians and Jews to live in peace from the river to the sea if your name was Andy McDonald H, happily he has been reinstated. but perhaps another illustration of where Western politicians were when this started. I think we can all agree, if we can agree on anything, that they are no longer in those positions.