Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted that Israel's armed forces " accidentally" killed 7 aid workers in an airstrike in Gaza, AFP reports.
"Unfortunately, there was a tragic case in the last twenty-four hours in which our forces unintentionally hit innocent people in the Gaza Strip," he said as he left a Jerusalem hospital after hernia surgery.
"This happens in wartime; we will investigate it to the end. We are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything to prevent this from happening again," he added.
The seven victims worked for the US-based World Central Kitchen (WCK), which delivers food aid by sea from Cyprus to the war-torn Gaza Strip.
It halted operations in Gaza after what it called a "targeted Israeli strike". It said those killed were "from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom, with dual US and Canadian citizenship and from Palestine".
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said earlier that he had spoken to WCK founder celebrity chef Jose Andres to express his "deepest condolences".
He said the investigation would be carried out by the Israeli military's Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism and "we will share our findings transparently."
Israel's chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, "will personally review the results of the initial investigation tonight," an army spokesman said.
UN agencies have repeatedly warned that the northern Gaza Strip is on the brink of famine, calling the situation a man-made crisis.
Gaza's bloodiest war erupted with the Oct. 7 assault that left some 1,160 people dead in Israel, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
At least 32,916 people, mostly women and children, have died in Israel's retaliatory campaign to destroy Hamas, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. / BGNES
