A review into the death of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom has found the Israeli Defence Force’s strike on aid workers in early April was the result of “serious failures to follow IDF procedures, mistaken identification and errors in decision-making”.
On April 1, Frankcom was among seven staff at World Central Kitchen (WCK) killed by an IDF strike in Gaza as they were delivering food.
The Australian government ordered a review into Israel’s response to the strike by special advisor Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin. The report was made public on Friday.
“Based on the information available to me, it is my assessment that the IDF strike on the WCK aid workers was not knowingly or deliberately directed against the WCK,” Binskin wrote in the report.
“In this incident, it appears that the IDF controls failed, leading to errors in decision making and a misidentification, likely compounded by a level of confirmation bias. As a result, it is likely that a failure to comply with the intent of senior command direction and a misidentification led to one WCK aid worker being killed in the first strike; and that a violation of IDF Standard Operating Procedures and RoE led to the deaths of the remaining six WCK aid workers and Solace Global personnel in the subsequent strikes.”
In his assessment of Israel’s response to the incident, he said: “It is my assessment that Israel’s acceptance of accountability for the 1 April WCK incident, and investigation, reporting and responding has, to this point, been timely, appropriate and, with some exceptions, sufficient.”
Amid international outrage after the deaths of the aid workers, Israel said the incident was a “grave mistake”.
Binskin made a number of recommendations in the review, including that the Australian government request regular updates on Israel’s investigation process, and that Frankcom’s family receives a briefing on the report.
Binskin also said an apology was an “important consideration” for the government of Israel. “As a part of such an apology, there would also be an opportunity for Israel to offer compensation to the families of those who were killed,” he said.
Speaking to the media upon the release of the report, Foreign Minister Penny Wong paid tribute to Frankcom, saying: “Her selflessness, her courage and her service to others even in the most challenging of circumstances is to be respected and is to be honoured.”
“We mourn her loss, and I again express our deepest sympathies and condolences to her family, and to her friends,” Wong said.
Wong said the federal government accepted all seven of the recommendations in the report and that she would continue to advocate for an apology from Israel to Frankcom’s family.
“This is why the Australian Government is implementing all of ACM Binskin’s recommendations, including the recommendation for further calls on Israel to improve coordination and deconfliction with humanitarian organisations working on the ground,” Wong said in a statement.
“We are working with the UN and the international community to press Israel to reform its coordination with humanitarian organisations, to ensure the tragic deaths of Zomi Frankcom and her World Central Kitchen colleagues are not in vain and not repeated.
“The Australian Government will persist until proper protections for aid workers are in place. The best protection for aid workers – and civilians – is a ceasefire.
“Israel’s process to determine accountability for the World Central Kitchen strikes is not over. The Military Advocate General of Israel is still to decide on further action. Our expectation remains that there be transparency about the Military Advocate General’s process and decision. I have written to my Israeli counterpart to this end.”
At the time the tragedy, Frankcom, 43, had been travelling with other foreign aid workers, volunteering with the not-for-profit WCK.
Frankcom had been working with WCK since 2019, where her role as a senior manager at the food charity took her around the world, to countries like Bangladesh, Morocco, Haiti, Pakistan, Turkey and Ukraine.
Frankcom also made a big impact here at home when she returned to Australia in January 2020 to help coordinate efforts to feed emergency service personnel and displaced people during the Black Summer bushfires on the NSW South Coast.