Thread by @reider

The IDF's early explanation re the killing of the World Central Kitchen team is in - per "security sources" speaking to Haaretz. Before we get to the putative pretext for the attack, they also disclose a harrowing detail - the drone bombed the convoy THREE TIMES in succession..

because team survived one hit and tried taking cover in another vehicle, and then survivors moved to a third - and were finished off there. Deliberate, repeated targeting of convoy, making sure no one was left alive.
And this actually doesn't stack up w the alleged pretext:

"According to sources acquainted with the details of the incident, the Operation Room in charge of securing the route identified an armed person on the truck and suspected this was a terrorist. By the time preparations were made for the attack, the truck arrived....

at the warehouse, together with the three WKC vehicles carrying seven volunteers... minutes later, the three vehicles left the warehouse, without the truck on which an armed person was allegedly sighted. The cars traveled on a route already confirmed to WKC by the IDF. The IDF

was also made aware of the timing of this particular convoy. At some point, while convoy was traveling on the authorised route, the Operations Room ordered the drone operator to strike one of the vehicles. Some passengers were seen leaving the stricken vehicle and moving...

to the other two. They had time to alert superiors they had been attacked, but seconds later were struck by a second missile. They began moving wounded to 3rd car, and that's when the 3rd missile hit. All seven volunteers were killed."
This is actually far worse than I imagined.

Source: haaretz.co.il/news/politics/…

The first and last vehicle targeted were over 2km apart:

https://twitter.com/marcowenjones/status/1775125251149500706?t=YQaswSDX7UpDvbE3UIglyA&s=19

So - a few follow-up points.
1. The stuff in my thread is NOT the official position of Israeli gov't and army. The official position, per Benjamin Netanyahu, is "shit happens, war is hell." The thread is a military source speaking, unauthorised, to Haaretz.

2.And that story is such BS, falls apart so readily on its own terms, I'm going to guess it's not top-brass cover story, either.
3. It's more likely what Israelis call "kastach" (acronym for covering your own ass) cooked up directly by drone operators/their immediate commanders.

Let's revisit. "We saw a truck go into WKC warehouse, and we THOUGHT we saw someone on it who MIGHT have been armed so we decided to kill him but by the time we got round to it OTHER CARS left the warehouse so we hit one of those instead. And then another. And then another."

So even if they're not lying - -
Q: You definitely saw a weapon?
A: No, dude.
Q: Was he a high-value, intel-driven target or just someone who looked sorta armed maybe?
A: The latter.
Q: Were any soldiers in the vicinity threatened by the presence of this maybe-gunman?
A: 🤷‍♂️

Q: But you had a visual on your target?
A: No, dude.
Q: But you had visual on the truck he rode?
A: No, dude. We bombed some TOTALLY DIFFERENT cars.
Q: You had an unconfirmed visual of someone armed and so later you knowingly bombed OTHER cars nearby?
A: ...
Q: ...
A: ...

Add to this the fact that WKC was painstakingly coordinating and clearing their convoy's movements with the IDF (and were getting smeared for it by Assadist/Putinist ghouls with a penchant for going after aid workers).

Add to it that the war room where the decision to strike was supposedly made (sounds fancy but a van with screens really) is the war room in charge of securing that exact route, so all of all the units in the field that day they SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED THAT CONVOY.

And finally add to it the IDF has been flaunting its close collaboration with WKC for its own propaganda purposes (specifically: look, aid is getting to the strip and also: look, we don't need UNRWA), and you get one of the least plausible storylines in the entire war, frankly.

So what happened? I normally go with cockup over conspiracy, and frankly the story of IDF deliberately luring WCK into Gaza only to bomb it as an example to other aid orgs doesn't stack up. Much simpler to not let them in. But cockup doesn't make sense either - if the war room

securing the route is the war room in charge of the drone strike, there isn't much wiggle room for miscommunication - especially considering the time factor, the visuals, the fact WCK have been operating in area for weeks, etc.
So what's the third option?

If I had to speculate, I'd say it's a unit or a cluster of units who've gone rogue. Not rogue in an open insurrection kind of way - just rogue as in a "sorry, sir what? don't copy". They killed the aid workers either for shits and giggles or bc, like many Israelis...

they believe it doesn't make sense to feed the people you're fighting if you want to win the war (see demos against the aid trucks) / that aid orgs are all antisemites. Or they were annoyed at top brass. Or they were bored. Or they wanted revenge. Now, this scenario is NOT...

suggesting these are "bad apples" and IDF on the whole would never do that. IDF on the whole killed 30k+ people in half a year. IDF would, could, and does do much worse. But in this case, the IDF as a disciplined, cohesive actor had every incentive to..

NOT kill Western aid workers. And yet a unit—not a trigger-happy soldier, but a unit—did. Which suggests the IDF may actually not be a disciplined / cohesive / coherent actor anymore.Not just when it's caught by surprise - it just structurally isn't. And that's extra-scary shit.

Anyhow, would love to see someone pull a @christogrozev / @bellingcat and extract the names of whoever held the joystick and whoever helped coordinate the strike. Unlikely, ofc. But we're long overdue for public, individual accountability for ground-level actors.

🚨And here we go - several new military source speaks to Haaretz: The commanders (plural) and units (plural) acted IN CONTRAVENTION of both overall instructions *and orders*.
Says one IDF intelligence source: "The General Staff know exactly why WCK were bombed -

- because in the Strip, everyone does whatever they like."
It's unclear whether the commanders asked for more senior officers' permission to target the convoy, as they were meant to be doing per standing orders.
The same sources dismissed the line taken by the Chief of Staff

Hertzi Halevy and Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who suggested the bombing was the result of coordination issues. "This has nothing to do with coordination - they can set up another 20 coordination hubs - but if someone doesn't put an end to how some forces

...in the Strip have been operating, we'll see this happen time and time again." End quote.
So yeah, multiple units in the IDF have gone completely out of control, per IDF sources.

Source: haaretz.co.il/news/politics/…