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The first strike was a case of false identity; the second and then the third were “grave mistakes”.

An Israeli investigation into the killing of seven aid workers, which has drawn outrage around the world, has found that incorrect assumptions, decision-making mistakes and violations of the rules of engagement had resulted in their deaths.

“The investigation’s findings indicate that the incident should not have occurred,” the IDF has said.

“The strike on the aid vehicles is a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures.”

Follow live: IDF sacks senior officials over aid worker killings

Three Britons – John Chapman, James Henderson and James Kirby – were killed in the series of airstrikes. They died alongside their colleagues, 35-year-old Damian Sobol from Poland, Australian Zomi Franckom, dual US-Canadian national Jacob Flickinger, and their young Palestinian driver Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha.

The Israeli military released the interim findings after a 72-hour investigation, having faced extreme pressure to explain why they killed the seven innocent aid workers.

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It also said it was dismissing two senior officers, citing rules of engagement violations, and reprimanded three more.

The statement said “the strikes on the three vehicles were carried out in serious violation of the commands”.

John Chapman, James Henderson and James Kirby all died in the Israeli strike
Image:
John Chapman, James Henderson and James Kirby all died in the Israeli strike

‘Misjudgement’ and ‘misclassification’

In a series of briefings at the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv on Thursday night, the Israeli military informed ambassadors, foreign journalists and chef Jose Andres, the founder of World Central Kitchen. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself had only been briefed hours beforehand.

The IDF said: “Following a misidentification by the forces, the forces targeted the three WCK [World Central Kitchen] vehicles based on the misclassification of the event and misidentification of the vehicles as having Hamas operatives inside them, with the resulting strike leading to the deaths of seven innocent humanitarian aid workers.

“[The soldiers’] belief that the attacked vehicles were carrying Hamas gunmen was based on operational misjudgement and misclassification of the situation,” said Major General Har-Even.

“As a result, and based on the radio communication, we assessed the state of mind of the IDF Forces that conducted the strike was that they were striking cars that had been seized by Hamas.”

The conclusions reveal a tragic spiral of negligence, miscommunication and false assumptions that will only lead to further questions and concerns about overall military behaviour in a war that has already claimed thousands of innocent lives.

Sky News was shown part of the drone surveillance footage from that night and briefed by the IDF on the investigation.

Findings are a damning slur on the Israeli military

This wasn’t an accident. It was no mistaken misfire.

The IDF cell tracking the vehicles fired lethal precision-guided missiles into each car, one after the other.

Through blurred nighttime surveillance footage, they saw what they thought was a man carrying a gun and assumed he was a Hamas fighter.

They then assumed everyone else travelling in the vehicles were also Hamas. There was no evidence for this.

They kept firing because they saw passengers still alive.

The basic failure to pass details of the aid convoy down the chain of command is a damning slur on a military that thinks of itself as being one of the best in the world.

The decision to launch air strikes with the intent of killing people, based on unsound evidence, raises deeply troubling questions of ethics in combat.

It’s a sad irony that one of the only reasons World Central Kitchen were operating at night was because of their previously good working relationship with the Israeli military.

Had six of the seven killed not been foreign aid workers, whose deaths caused an international outcry, then this investigation would not have happened and the Israeli military would not have been forced to explain its actions.

How many Palestinian civilians therefore have been killed in similar, uninvestigated cases of mistaken identity, we will probably never know.

Aid team were unloading ‘one of biggest shipments to date’

That Monday, a small team working for World Central Kitchen oversaw the unloading of the latest aid ship to arrive in Gaza from Cyprus – it was carrying 300 tonnes of food, one of the biggest shipments to date.

This was day one of what was to be a four-day operation, closely coordinated with the Israeli military and civilian authorities. Unlike the UN, the Israelis trust World Central Kitchen as “one of the good guys” and have worked with them to get more aid into Gaza, including via this sea route.

The blood-stained passports of three of the aid workers killed by Israel. Pic: AP
Image:
The blood-stained passports of three of the aid workers killed by Israel. Pic: AP

The team’s movements had been agreed with COGAT – the Israeli body responsible for the Gaza borders that had the identities of the humanitarian workers on the operation – details of their vehicles (although no number plates), their anticipated movements and contact details for World Central Kitchen on the ground and back in the US.

This part “was done correctly,” according to the investigation. But things broke down from there.

From COGAT, those details were then sent to the Israeli military’s Southern Command which would be operating armed-drone surveillance flights overhead. It is at this point in the chain of command that the IDF said details of the aid convoy “stopped somewhere… we don’t know where”.

The result of this is that the drone pilots and military cell, which would have flown previous missions already that evening, were not fully read in to the operation they were overseeing.

Timeline of events, according to the IDF

• At 10pm, eight aid lorries drove south down the coast road in Gaza from the pier constructed by World Central Kitchen to a warehouse being used by the charity.

• At 10.28pm, a drone operator spots an armed person on top of one of the lorries. He’s then seen opening fire, it’s thought to keep a crowd back.

COGAT is notified by the IDF and attempts to call the WCK staff on the ground. Failing to get hold of them, they call the WCK operations centre in Europe – they too have no luck.

• Some time between 10.28pm and 10.47pm, the convoy arrived at a warehouse.

• At 10.46pm, a second gunman joined the first, at which point the IDF cell assumed them to be Hamas. However, the drone is ordered not to strike because of the humanitarian mission.

“So in the operator’s eyes, there are armed guys next to a convoy but he has an order: you don’t fire on armed men when they’re next to an aid convoy,” the IDF said at the investigation briefing.

• At 10.55pm, four vehicles leave the warehouse. By now, there are two Hermes 450 armed drones monitoring the activity.

One of those vehicles turned north – which was not part of the agreed plan, the IDF said.

A drone monitored its arrival at a second hangar close by, at which point at least four people exit the car – they were deemed to be armed and members of Hamas. The surveillance footage, watched by Sky News, isn’t conclusive but they are carrying objects that could be interpreted as guns.

The other three vehicles – which we now know were carrying the seven aid workers – drove south after leaving the warehouse.

The drone operator believes they saw an armed person getting into one of the cars and that the aid workers had stayed at the warehouse.

A World Central Kitchen vehicle wrecked by an Israeli strike. Pic: AP
Image:
A World Central Kitchen vehicle wrecked by an Israeli strike. Pic: AP

‘They are a target in his eyes’

The IDF said in their briefing: “So we have for sure two people that were identified with guns. And now there was a question and people said, maybe this is also a gun. You know, their vest, and they’re not sure, they’re trying to find out whether there are more people carrying guns… at this point, there is a misclassification… They are a target in his eyes, of the operator, mistake.”

It’s dark, not long before midnight, and the picture is unclear. It is now accepted that what was thought to be a gun could have been “a bag or something similar. We don’t know”.

In another twist of fortune, the large charity branding, stuck to the roofs of the cars to identify them, couldn’t be seen by the drones. “That is a lesson we all need to learn,” the IDF has conceded. “The cameras were unable to identify markings – they were not visible at night. This was a key factor.”

By now, the drone pilot and Brigade cell are operating on three assumptions: that Hamas fighters are in the vehicles, the innocent aid workers have remained with the lorries, and the humanitarian mission is over.

As they watch them drive away from the warehouse, towards the sea, an IDF Colonel and Major sign off the order to strike. There is no military lawyer present.

“Remember, in the minds of the [IDF] cell, the humanitarian workers had remained with trucks in hangar,” General Har-Even said in the briefing.

However, the investigation has concluded that there was not enough evidence to make the convoy a legitimate target.

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Netanyahu: ‘This happens in war’

• At 11.09pm, the first missile hits.

Two passengers are then seen running out towards the second car, further up the road.

• At 11.11pm, with no updated order to strike, a second missile is launched; it hits the second vehicle, cutting a hole straight through the charity logo and into the rear of the armoured car.

Again, some of the passengers are still alive and run towards the third vehicle.

• At 11.13pm, a third and final strike hits the remaining car. All seven aid workers are killed.

In the opinion of the IDF investigation, it was the decision to launch the second and third strikes that broke “operational procedure”. It was, in the words of the general overseeing the inquiry, “a grave mistake”.

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Ex-World Central Kitchen boss on aid worker deaths

‘We are responsible’

The IDF soldiers involved have been suspended from duty. The Military Advocate General is yet to decide whether a criminal case should be launched.

“It’s a tragedy, it’s a mistake, actually it’s not a mistake, it is a serious event that we are responsible for,” the IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.

“One thing we are sure of: there was no intentional harm here directed towards World Central Kitchen employees or other civilians.”

The body of one of the foreign aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK). Pic: Reuters
Image:
The body of one of the foreign aid workers from the World Central Kitchen. Pic: Reuters

On Wednesday afternoon the bodies were taken over the Rafah crossing into Egypt ahead of travelling home to be buried.

Following the killings, calls to suspend arms sales to Israel have grown significantly louder in the UK and US.

The findings, which reveal major failings in the IDF’s identification system and rules of engagement, will underline grave fears that hundreds, possibly thousands of civilians have been killed in Gaza as a result of similar errors. Their deaths would not have been investigated.

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Ransacked and looted: Sky reporter returns to family home left in ruins after war in Sudan

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Ransacked and looted: Sky reporter returns to family home left in ruins after war in Sudan

The biggest city in the Sahel has been ransacked and left in ruins.

War erupted in Sudan’s capital Khartoum in April 2023 and sent millions searching for safety.

The city was quickly captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after a power struggle with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for total control.

At least 61,000 people were killed from the fighting and siege conditions in Khartoum state alone.

Thousands more were maimed and many remain missing.

The RSF fled Khartoum’s neighbourhoods in caravans carrying the city’s looted treasures as the army closed in and recaptured it after two years of occupation.

The empty streets they left behind are lined with charred, bullet-ridden buildings and robbed store fronts.

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The once shiny skyscrapers built along the confluence of the River Nile are now husks of blackened steel.

The neighbourhoods are skeletal. Generational homes are deserted and hollow.

Damage around Khartoum
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Damage from fighting around Khartoum

Damage around Khartoum

Trenches snake the streets where copper electric cables were ripped out of the ground and pulled out of lampposts now overridden with weeds.

The majority of the 13 million people displaced by this war fled Khartoum. Many left in a rush, assuming it would only take a few weeks for peace to be restored.

My parents were among those millions and in the midst of the abandoned, looted homes is the house where I grew up.

Yousra Elbagir's family home was left in ruins by RSF troops
Image:
Yousra Elbagir’s family home was left in ruins by RSF troops

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Yousra said it was likely a bomb had previously fallen nearby and shaken the house at its base

A shell of a home

I have to strain my eyes to see the turn to my house. All the usual markers are gone. There are no gatherings of young people drinking coffee with tea ladies in the leafy shade – just gaping billboard frames that once held up advertisements behind cars of courting couples parked by the Nile.

Our garden is both overgrown and dried to death.

The mango, lemon and jasmine trees carefully planted by my mother and brother have withered.

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Image:
Structural damage to the outside of the home

The Bougainvillea has reached over the pathway and blocked off the main entrance. We go through the small black side door.

Our family car is no longer in the garage, forcing us to walk around it.

It was stolen shortly after my parents evacuated.

The two chairs my mum and dad would sit at the centre of the front lawn are still there, but surrounded by thorny weeds and twisted, bleached vines.

Yousra Elbagir's family home in Khartoum before RSF's takeover of the city
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How the home looked before Sudan’s war

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Image:
And how it looks now

The neighbour’s once lush garden is barren too.

Their tall palm trees at the front of the house have been beheaded – rounding off into a greyish stump instead of lush fronds.

Read more:
How recaptured palace is a significant sign of return to order
Sudan’s paramilitary chief announces rival government

Everyone in Khartoum is coming back to a game of Russian roulette. Searching out their houses to confirm suspicions of whether it was blasted, burned or punctured with bullets.

Many homes were looted and bruised by nearby combat but some are still standing. Others have been completely destroyed.

Yousra Elbagir's family home in Khartoum before RSF's takeover of the city
Image:
How the home looked before the war

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Image:
And how it looks now

The outside of our house looks smooth from the street but has a crack in the base of the front wall visible from up close.

It is likely a bomb fell nearby and shook the house at its base – a reminder of the airstrikes and shelling that my parents and their neighbours fled.

Inside, the damage is choking.

Most of the furniture has been taken except a few lone couches.

The carpets and curtains have been stripped. The electrical panels and wiring pulled out. The appliances, dishes, glasses and spices snatched from the kitchens.

Yousra Elbagir shows her mother pictures found in the home
Image:
Yousra shows her mother pictures found in the home

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The walls are bare apart from the few items they decided to spare. Ceilings have been punctured and cushions torn open in their hunt for hidden gold.

The walls are marked with the names of RSF troops that came in and out of this house like it was their own.

The home that has been the centre of our life in Sudan is a shell.

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Sudan’s war has left the country fractured

Glimmers of hope

The picture of sheer wreckage settles and signs of familiarity come into focus.

A family photo album that is 20 years old.

The rocking chair my mother cradled me and my sister in. My university certificate.

Yousra Elbagir finds her university degree certificate in the wreckage
Image:
Yousra finds her university certificate in the wreckage

Celebratory snaps of my siblings’ weddings. Books my brother has had since the early nineties.

The painting above my bed that I have pined over during the two years – custom-made and gifted to me for my 24th birthday and signed by my family on the back.

There are signs of dirt and damage on all these items our looters discarded but it is enough.

Yousra's parents pictured at home before they fled Khartoum
Image:
Yousra’s parents pictured at home before they fled Khartoum

Evidence of material destruction but a reminder of what we can hope will endure.

The spirit of the people that gathered to laugh, cry and break bread in these rooms.

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A portrait of Yousra Elbagir's grandmother which was damaged by RSF troops
Image:
A portrait of Yousra’s grandmother damaged by RSF troops

The hospitality and warmth of a Sudanese home with an open door.

The community and sense of togetherness that can never truly be robbed.

What remains in our hearts and our city is a sign of what will get us through.

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Unpredictable and disruptive or canny and persistent – what exactly is Donald Trump’s foreign policy?

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Unpredictable and disruptive or canny and persistent - what exactly is Donald Trump's foreign policy?

So, after 100 days of Donald Trump the big question for me remains – does the US president have a coherent foreign policy or is he just winging it?

Let’s take his attitude to the war in Ukraine – here “inconsistent” is perhaps the best description.

Back in February, he and vice president JD Vance humiliated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by shouting at him in the Oval Office.

A few days later, I spoke to Mr Zelenskyy in person when he confided to me that maybe he would have to step down if NATO could guarantee Ukraine membership – a man who perhaps sensed he could never win against a hostile Mr Trump.

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Sky News meets Zelenskyy: The key moments

Yet, fast-forward to last weekend in Rome, and an iconic picture of the two men in close conversation at the Pope’s funeral.

This time round, it is Russian President Vladimir Putin on the receiving end of the presidential anger, blaming him for the fact that “too many people are dying!”

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, and President Donald Trump, talk as they attend the funeral of Pope Francis in Vatican, Saturday, April 26, 2025.(Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
Image:
Trump and Zelenskyy talk in the Vatican. Pic: AP

To Trump’s supporters, this is the smart negotiator, constantly repositioning himself as new information comes in, prior to pulling off a spectacular deal.

To his many detractors, it indicates a dangerous incoherence that is replicated in other key areas, including tariffs as well as his relationship with his allies in Europe and his foes in Beijing.

Trump 100: Read more
Tariffs, DOGE, diet coke: 100 days in 100 words
Trump’s awkward reckoning 100 days in

How an immigration crackdown has changed lives

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Flexible or fallible; in control or all at sea? In the fast and furious world of Donald Trump, it’s almost impossible to call.

The only constants are his unwavering self-belief, or as the man himself says: “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.”

We shall see.

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Gaza aid worker detained after Israeli attack has been released

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Gaza aid worker detained after Israeli attack has been released

A paramedic in Gaza who was detained for more than five weeks following an Israeli attack that killed 15 aid workers has been released, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said.

Asaad al Nsasrah was one of 17 aid workers who were attacked in Tel al Sultan in southern Gaza by Israeli forces on 23 March.

Asaad was one of two first responders who survived – the other 15 were killed.

He was initially thought to be missing, as his body was not among the dead. It was not until 13 April, three weeks after the attack, that Israel confirmed Asaad was alive and in Israeli detention.

The PRCS announced Asaad’s release on X and shared a video of him reuniting with colleagues.

Sky News has seen images showing Asaad, among other released Palestinians, in a grey tracksuit at al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, where he is undergoing medical examination, according to the PRCS.

Sky News investigated how the attack on the aid workers unfolded – unearthing new evidence earlier this month contradicting Israel’s official account of what happened.

The Israeli military later released the findings of its own investigation into the incident, saying it had dismissed a deputy commander for providing an “inaccurate report”.

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How two hours of terror unfolded

The PRCS claimed the Israeli military’s investigation was “full of lies”.

Asaad’s voice can be heard in a video, initially published by the New York Times, that shows the moments leading up to the attack on the aid workers.

The video was discovered on Rifaat Radwaan’s phone, which was found on his body by rescue workers five days after the attack.

Among those killed were one UN worker, eight paramedics from the PRCS and six first responders from Civil Defence – the official fire and rescue service of Gaza’s Hamas-led government.


The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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