Israel-Hamas war: Three Britons killed in Gaza named, as IDF says ‘misidentification’ led to deadly airstrike
Three British aid workers killed in Gaza have been named – with Israel admitting the airstrike was a “grave mistake”.
John Chapman, James Kirby and James Henderson were among seven volunteers from World Central Kitchen who died after a convoy they were travelling in was hit.
Israel Defence Forces said the strike did not intend to target aid workers, and a thorough investigation into the incident will be completed in the coming days.
“It was a mistake that followed a misidentification – at night, during a war, in very complex conditions. It shouldn’t have happened,” an official added.
Middle East latest: Israel offers condolences after ‘tragic deaths’
The blood-stained UK, Polish, and Australian passports of the volunteers. Pic: AP
Documents seen by Sky News suggest Mr Chapman, 57, had been due to leave the Palestinian territory on the day of the fatal airstrike.
All three British nationals were part of World Central Kitchen’s security team – and it is believed the volunteers were helping to deliver aid that had arrived hours earlier on a ship from Cyprus.
Nationals from Poland and Australia were also among those killed, as well as a dual citizen of the US and Canada, and a Palestinian who was driving the car they were all travelling in.
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What happened to killed aid workers?
Erin Gore, the charity’s chief executive, said: “Their smiles, laughter, and voices are forever embedded in our memories. And we have countless memories of them giving their best selves to the world.
“We are reeling from our loss. The world’s loss.”
US President Joe Biden has said he is “outraged and heartbroken” by their deaths.
“They were providing food to hungry civilians in the middle of a war. They were brave and selfless. Their deaths are a tragedy,” he added.
One of the vehicles the aid workers were travelling in. Pic: AP
Mr Biden also criticised Israel – and said the country hasn’t done enough to protect civilians.
“Even more tragically, this is not a standalone incident,” his statement said. “This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed.
“This is a major reason why distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza has been so difficult – because Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians.”
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Netanyahu: ‘This happens in war’
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that Israeli forces were responsible – saying there was a “tragic incident of an unintended strike of our forces on innocent people in the Gaza Strip”.
He added: “It happens in war, we check it to the end, we are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again.”
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The UK’s foreign secretary Lord Cameron said he had spoken to Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz to “underline that the deaths of WCK aid workers in Gaza, including three British nationals, are completely unacceptable”.
Melbourne-born Lalzawmi ‘Zomi’ Frankcom also lost her life in the attack – along with Palestinian national Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, Damian Sobol from Poland, and dual US-Canadian citizen Jacob Flickinger.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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