Middle East crisis: Israel says investigation into its air strike that killed aid workers in Gaza to take weeks – as it happened

• The international food charity World Central Kitchen has called for an independent investigation into the Israeli strikes that killed seven of its aid workers in Gaza on Monday. WCK asked Australia, Canada, Poland, the US and the UK, whose citizens were killed, to join them in demanding “an independent, third-party’’ inquiry into the strikes.

• WCK asked the Israeli government to retain all the necessary evidence, including communications, video and audio recordings of the fatal strikes on their convoy. The bodies of six foreign staff of WCK were repatriated from Gaza via Egypt on Wednesday, while the Palestinian employee was buried in Gaza.

• Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese said it was not good enough for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say that “this is just a product of war”. Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk called for an apology, compensation and investigation from Israel.

• Aid organisations working in Gaza have said they are demanding the Israeli military improve and adhere to security procedures intended to keep their workers safe, following the Israeli airstrikes that killed all seven members of a convoy of humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK). Several aid groups have suspended operations.

• Israel’s actions in Gaza have “bordered on the reckless”, a former head of MI6 has said, amid pressure on the UK government to stop arms sales. Alex Younger, who led the Secret Intelligence Service between 2014 and 2020, said it was “hard not to conclude that insufficient care is being paid to the collateral risks of these operations, one way or another”.

• At least 33,037 Palestinians have been killed and 75,668 have been injured in the Israeli military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The Hamas-led ministry said about 62 Palestinians were killed and 91 injured in the past 24 hours. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify casualty figures being issued during the conflict.

• In its daily operational briefing Israel’s military claims to have killed “a number of terrorists” and to have “located weapons over the past day”. It also claims it has “struck terrorist infrastructures and eliminated terrorists using tank fire”. None of the information supplied by the Israeli military has been independently verified, and Israel has limited the access of journalists into the Gaza Strip.

• The charity Oxfam has calculated that people in northern Gaza are being forced to survive on 245 calories a day, which is less than 12% of the average intake needed by people. It says it amounts to less than the calorific value of a can of fava beans.

• More than 600 prominent lawyers in the UK have signed a letter that calls for end to UK arms exports to Israel, as a “measure to prevent” genocide. Signatory Michael Mansfield KC said on Thursday “You can see that it’s very obvious every time a picture comes back there’s nothing left. And you’ve got people starving to death. And I say, and I think some of the others on the letter would say, effectively, we’ve reached genocide already.”

• A spokesperson for the UK’s main opposition Labour party has said that the UK government should publish legal advice given to it about whether Israel is breaking international law, to ensure that the UK government is not breaking the law itself by continuing to allow arms sales to Israel. A majority of voters in Britain back a ban on arms sales to Israel, according to a YouGov poll.

• Demonstrators in Tel Aviv again blocked a highway calling for the immediate release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and other groups inside Gaza. They called on Israel’s government to do more to strike a deal for a pause to fighting to facilitate their release.

• Israel has halted leave for its combat units. A statement said “In accordance with the situational assessment, it has been decided that leave will be temporarily paused for all IDF combat units. The IDF is at war and the deployment of forces is under continuous assessment according to requirements.”

• Israeli media reports a step up in GPS jamming inside the country, believed to be a preparation for a potential attack from Iran, which has vowed revenge after an airstrike on its consulate in Damascus killed several senior military commanders. Iran has blamed Israel, which has neither confirmed or denied it carried out the strike.

In an update to the press, World Central Kitchen (WCK) has said that all of its ships are back in Cyprus, and that “A determination has not yet been made about when to resume operations in Gaza”.

Earlier it called for “an independent, third-party investigation” investigation into the circumstances on Monday when a series of three strikes on an aid convoy killed seven of its humanitarian aid workers. It asked the governments of Australia, Canada, the US, Poland, and the UK to join the call.

Reuters reports that Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli intelligence chief, has said this Friday is the most likely timing of any revenge attack by Iran for the suspected Israeli strike that killed Iranian military commanders at its consulate in Syria’s capital Damascus earlier this week.

The news agency quotes Yadlin saying “I will not be surprised if Iran will act tomorrow. Don’t panic. Don’t run to the shelters. Be tuned for tomorrow and then, depending on the consequences of the attack, it may escalate.”

Tomorrow is the final Friday in Ramadan, which is celebrated as Quds Day in Iran and beyond as a pro-Palestinian day named after the Arabic name for Jerusalem, al-Quds.

Israeli media has reported that Israel has stepped up the jamming of GPS signals inside the country in an effort to reduce the effectiveness of guided missiles or drones.

Iran has blamed Israel for the strike on Damascus, and vowed revenge.

Poland’s president Andrzej Duda has echoed an earlier call by the country’s prime minister Donald Tusk for an apology, compensation and investigation from Israel into the death of Damian Soból, 35, the Polish national who was killed when Israel attacked a World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid convoy inside the Gaza Strip on Monday.

Tusk had said “We will expect … an immediate explanation of the circumstances and compensation for the victims’ relatives.”

Reuters reports Duda had critical words for Israel’s ambassador to Poland during a televised speech on Nato’s anniversary, saying:

The authorities in Israel speak in a very subdued and sensitive manner. Unfortunately, their ambassador in Poland is unable to maintain such delicacy and this is unacceptable. Today the ambassador is making these relations very difficult. This is my assessment.

Poland has summoned Israel’s ambassador after comments he made earlier in the week. In a post on social media on Tuesday, Yacov Livne wrote:

The extreme right and left in Poland accuse Israel of intentional murder in yesterday’s attack, which resulted in the death of members of a humanitarian organization, including a Polish citizen.

Deputy speaker of the Sejm and leader of the Confederation, Krzysztof Bosak, claims that Israel is committing “war crimes” and terrorizing humanitarian organizations to starve the Palestinians.

This is the same Bosak who to this day has refused to condemn the massacre committed by Hamas on 7 October and whose party colleague, a right-wing extremist, used a fire extinguisher to extinguish the Hanukkah menorah that we lit in the parliament in Warsaw.

Conclusion: anti-Semites will always remain anti-Semites, and Israel will remain a democratic Jewish state that fights for its right to exist and also for the good of the entire western world.

Diplomatic relations between Israel and Poland have been tense in recent years as Poland moved to pass a law criminalising accusing Poles of collective complicity in Nazi war crimes carried out on German-occupied Polish territory, and also attempting to pass a statue of limitations on property restitution, which would prevent reclamation of property seized during the second world war.

Karyn Beattie, a team leader for Save the Children’s response in Gaza, has spoken to the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood about the situation after the deadly Israeli airstrike on a World Central Kitchen aid convoy on Monday that killed seven humanitarian aid workers. She writes:

Every time we travel [within Gaza], we tell the Israeli military. Our information goes to the UN in Jerusalem and they send it to Cogat and the Gaza CLA [two Israeli government bodies] who coordinate with the Israeli military. We do this for every single movement, and we don’t set off until we have confirmation that all the information has been logged.

Our vehicles are clearly marked with Save the Children logos on the roof, sides and bonnet, and sometimes we have little flags attached to the vehicles too.

We don’t wear flak jackets and helmets because the Israelis don’t allow us to bring body armour into Gaza through the Rafah crossing. Very few aid agency staff have body protection.

World Central Kitchen (WCK) has a different way of coordinating its movements with the Israeli military. They’ve developed a good system of direct contact. They’re very well known to the Israelis. They constantly update their movements.

That’s why we’re all absolutely shocked at the airstrikes – the fact that it was WCK. It has shaken confidence in the system. I feel quite nervous now, I’ll be honest.

We all expect an increase in international staff who ask to leave. If people want out, that’s their right. If they want to go, it’s my job to get them out.

The day of the airstrikes on the WCK convoy, I sent messages to my family to tell them they were going to hear about aid workers being killed but I was okay. All of us are constantly aware that our families are worried. You think, is it okay for me to put them through this?

Read more of what Karyn Beattie told Harriet Sherwood here: ‘I feel quite nervous now’: Gaza aid worker on safety concerns after Israeli attack

The charity Oxfam has calculated that people in Gaza are being forced to survive on 245 calories a day, which is less than 12% of the average intake needed by people. It says it amounts to less than the calorific value of a can of fava beans.

Stating that over 300,000 people are believed to still be trapped in northern Gaza, unable to leave, and after Israel’s decision to prevent Unrwa delivering aid to the north, Oxfam says its analysis is based on the latest available data used in the recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis for the Gaza Strip.

A coalition of aid agencies has previously warned of imminent famine in northern Gaza.

Oxfam said that the total food deliveries allowed into Gaza for the entire 2.2 million population – since last October - amounted to an average of just 41 per cent of the daily calories needed per person. It claimed that less than half the number of food trucks needed to reach the daily 2,100 calories intake for everyone are currently entering Gaza.

In a statement, Oxfam quoted one mother trapped in northern Gaza saying:

Before the war, we were in good health and had strong bodies. Now, looking at my children and myself, we have lost so much weight since we do not eat any proper food, we are trying to eat whatever we find – edible wild plants or herbs daily just to survive.

Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International Executive Director said:

Israel is making deliberate choices to starve civilians. Imagine what it is like, not only to be trying to survive on 245 calories day in, day out, but also having to watch your children or elderly relatives do the same. All while displaced, with little to no access to clean water or a toilet, knowing most medical support has gone and under the constant threat of drones and bombs.

Oxfam says it has repeatedly called for a permanent ceasefire, the return of all hostages from Gaza, the release of unlawfully detained Palestinian prisoners, for countries to immediately stop supplying arms to Israel and for full humanitarian aid access.

A spokesperson for the UK’s main opposition party has said that the government should publish legal advice given to it about whether Israel is breaking international law, to ensure that it is not breaking the law by continuing to allow arms sales to Israel.

Appearing on the GB News television channel, Labour’s shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said:

Specifically in the case of British arms exports to Israel, the law of the UK is very, very clear. If there is any possibility of anything exported from the UK being involved in a serious violation of a humanitarian law, it cannot be exported from the UK.

The Government will have had legal advice on that specific to the conflict in Gaza. We’ve asked them to publish that legal advice.

At the weekend it was reported by the Observer that government lawyers had written advice that said Israel is breaking humanitarian law, and that the government had not yet acted on that advice.

Overnight the Guardian reported that in the UK more than 600 prominent lawyers have signed a letter that calls for end to UK arms exports to Israel, as a “measure to prevent” genocide.

Speaking about the 17-page letter, which also amounts to a legal opinion, human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield KC told listeners to Times Radio that “effectively, we’ve reached genocide already”.

PA Media quotes him saying:

You can see that it’s very obvious every time a picture comes back there’s nothing left. And you’ve got people starving to death. And I say, and I think some of the others on the letter would say, effectively, we’ve reached genocide already.

View image in fullscreen

Demonstrators in Israel have again blocked a highway in Tel Aviv calling for the immediate release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and other groups inside Gaza. They are calling on Israel’s government to do more to strike a deal for a pause to fighting to facilitate their release.

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

About 240 people were abducted as hostages by Hamas during the 7 October attack inside souther Israel. About 100 have subsequently been released, and some, including Shani Louk and three men killed by IDF forces while escaping, are known to be dead. Not all the remaining hostages are believed to be alive

Reuters reports that Poland’s prime minister has said Israel should apologise and pay compensation to the family of a Polish aid worker killed by an Israeli airstrike on an aid convoy in Gaza on Monday.

Donald Tusk, speaking in a news conference, said “We will expect … an immediate explanation of the circumstances and compensation for the victims’ relatives.”

Yesterday, in a social media statement, Tusk said “the vast majority of Poles showed full solidarity with Israel after the Hamas attack. Today you are putting this solidarity to a really hard test. The tragic attack on volunteers and your reaction arouse understandable anger.”

Damian Soból, 35, was killed in the World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy on Monday. Marta Wilczyńska, of the Free Place Foundation, which cooperates with World Central Kitchen, said of him “He was a really extraordinary guy. Always smiling, always so helpful, he loved this job.”