The murdered workers, three British citizens, a dual US-Canadian national, a Polish citizen, an Australian, and a Palestinian, belonged to the World Central Kitchen. The reason for their murder - delivery of food aid to Gazan civilians being starved by Israel.
And to rub salt into the wound the Israeli announcement came on World Humanitarian Day. It was a demonstrable flip of the bird by Israeli to international law in which it demonstrated its contempt for the international legal institutions which on paper at any rate exist for the purpose of holding to account those guilty of Nazi-like atrocities.
The governments of the UK, Australia and Canada issued a joint statement in which they said that the IDF announcement 'that it would not pursue criminal investigations into this strike, without further explanation, is shameful."
The World Central Kitchen which employed the murdered aid workers called the Israeli decision "inconsistent with the full truth and deeply offensive."
This move comes in tandem with an acknowledgement by the IDF of something that everybody else has known since 2024. For the past two years the IDF has lied, claiming to have had no forces in the area of the mass murder that saw the deaths of six year old Hind Rajab who:
was found dead inside a car riddled with hundreds of bullets in Gaza City alongside six members of her family, days after she desperately called for help during an hours-long phone call with the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Hind Rajab's remaining family members have expressed no confidence in the Israeli promise to investigate as has the Hind Rajab Foundation in Brussels which rightly pointed out that:
Investigations into violations committed by Israeli forces overwhelmingly end without meaningful examination, prosecution, or punishment . . . In the small number of cases in which soldiers have been convicted of crimes, the punishments imposed have often been exceptionally lenient or administrative in nature.
It is Israel's Nazi-like belief that it is above and beyond international law and that it can murder at will with no fear of accountability that allows Israeli Security Minister Ben Givr, to invoke the Nazi concept of untermesch to advocate that:
targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night . . . Not just those who pose an immediate threat . . . There are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn't live. They're not even people.
Yet there are those who would not be upset by that statement but would claim to be deeply offended by, and squeal antisemitism at, others for describing the author of such a heinous statement as a Nazi.
This is what makes the decision to fire International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan an alarming development with Jonathan Cook warning that with his dismissal 'the elimination of the war crimes court is near-complete.'
If Khan is guilty of sexual harassment of a woman named only as Sarah, then there is no appropriate response to his dismissal other than goodbye and good riddance. Yet as Cook points out:
He continued that:
Khan was previously told by a British-Israel lawyer with connection to Netanyahu “they will destroy you and they will destroy the court' if the arrest warrants for Israeli leaders were not rescinded.
If Khan is guilty of sexual harassment of a woman named only as Sarah, then there is no appropriate response to his dismissal other than goodbye and good riddance. Yet as Cook points out:
A fact-finding body carried out a lengthy investigation of Sarah’s allegations over more than a year; its thousands of pages of evidence were then evaluated in detail by three senior judges. Though you would not know it from the media coverage, they concluded that there was no evidence to suggest any kind of misconduct by Khan, sexual or otherwise.
He continued that:
an entirely political body called the Assembly of States Parties, comprising diplomatic representatives of the 125 states signed up to the ICC, entirely ignored the legal findings and dismissed Khan. Paradoxically, it was the Assembly of States Parties that appointed the judges who had concluded that there was no evidence of misconduct or breach of duty by Khan. That inconvenient judgment was simply reversed, despite the Assembly members being in no position to weigh the evidence themselves.
Khan was previously told by a British-Israel lawyer with connection to Netanyahu “they will destroy you and they will destroy the court' if the arrest warrants for Israeli leaders were not rescinded.
The same determination to evade accountability in the ICC was in play when Fatou Bensouda the Ghanian legal figure was ICC prosecutor for nine years. Bensouda reported that she was also the subject of intense pressure from a strategic initiative launched by Mossad. The Mossad aim according to an Israeli official speaking to the Guardian was 'to compromise the prosecutor or enlist her as someone who would cooperate with Israel’s demands.'
We know the truth behind the murder of the aid workers and the Hind Rajab massacre. It is a truth we assemble at this spot every Saturday as Drogheda Stands With Palestine, to proclaim. The message that rings out from this spot and others each time people of conscience gather in solidarity with the murdered of Gaza and the West Bank is you may have got rid of Khan, but getting rid of the truth - No Khan do. We steadfastly refuse to allow you.
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