{"id":1028344,"date":"2026-08-27T23:17:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1028344\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T23:17:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:17:57","slug":"legal-expert-says-idf-decision-on-wck-strike-aligns-with-international-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1028344\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal expert says IDF decision on WCK strike aligns with international law"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 1, 2024, the IDF<\/a> mistakenly killed seven international food aid workers working for the World Central Kitchen (WCK).<\/p>\n

Last week, the IDF probe admitted that its surveillance officials misidentified the WCK security officials as Hamas members.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging the gravity of its error, the chief military prosecutor of the Military Advocate-General (MAG<\/a>) Corps determined that, notwithstanding serious failures in the process that led to the assessment that Hamas operatives were traveling in the vehicles, the decisions of the commanders did not raise reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct.<\/p>\n

The IDF therefore decided not to open a criminal investigation.<\/p>\n

Following this announcement, in a joint statement the foreign ministers of the UK, Australia, and Canada said the decision not to pursue criminal investigations was \u201cshameful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe IDF strikes targets in Gaza’s Khan Yunis, August 15, 2026. (credit: SCREENSHOT\/TELEGRAM\/DORON KADOSH)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just say it\u2019s a shame that Israel hasn\u2019t brought criminal charges \u2013 they don\u2019t specify what is shameful about it,\u201d Dr. Brian L. Cox told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.<\/p>\n

A very thorough assessment, no evidence of war crime<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cox retired from the United States Army in 2018 after 22 years of service, including seven years as a military lawyer. He is now a senior fellow at Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Canada, and he taught international law at Cornell Law School from 2019-26.<\/p>\n

Cox told the Post that it makes sense for Israel to not pursue criminal charges because they have done a \u201cvery thorough assessment based on all the evidence they can gather, and they\u2019ve reached the conclusion that this wasn\u2019t a war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

From an International Humanitarian Law (IHL) perspective, this case is \u201creally straightforward,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the personnel involved believed they were attacking Hamas fighters and not WCK humanitarian workers, then it wasn\u2019t a war crime. And that\u2019s just a doctrinal application of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) distinction rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cox added that militaries can prosecute for violation of use of force policy, but then it would have to be \u201creally egregious, a wanton disregard\u201d of policy, which was not the case here.<\/p>\n

While the IDF chose not to open criminal investigations, it did remove several officers from their positions, and others were formally reprimanded, an outcome that Cox said would have been exactly the same if the incident had involved the Australian, UK, or Canadian military.<\/p>\n

Cox pointed out that a \u201cdouble standard\u201d is being applied to the IDF here.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because there was an allegation that has been leveled against Israel, the expectation is that the IDF will initiate a criminal prosecution. That expectation doesn\u2019t exist for any other military, including the three countries that signed this joint statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some interesting legal questions do arise from this incident. One is whether, if soldiers mistakenly believe civilians are legitimate targets, as in this case, they can still be guilty of a war crime if the mistake was caused by negligence.<\/p>\n

Cox explained that while some scholars have argued that recklessness should be taken into account when considering the mens rea of a war crime, this is actually a \u201cmisrepresentation of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told the Post that he had traced this argument \u201cback to the International Committee of the Red Cross<\/a> in their Customary IHL study,\u201d which says that war crimes \u201ccould be committed with intent. And that includes dolus eventualis, which is like the civil law equivalent of recklessness.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the IHL study cites just one source: a decision of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) that claims that war crimes can be committed recklessly. Nevertheless, the ICTY was not actually capable of establishing international law on its own.<\/p>\n

After the ICTY decision was published in the mid-1990s, multiple countries, including the UK, Australia, and Canada, ended up negotiating and then ratifying the Rome Statute. When the 160 state delegations came together in 1998, they rejected efforts to include recklessness as part of the Rome Statute\u2019s mental element for war crimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you go to the Rome Statute and look at Article 30, which is the mental element \u2013 and then Article 32, which is mistake of fact, it\u2019s clear that recklessness is not included as part of the mental element for war crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cox said that, as far as he was aware, there had never been a criminal prosecution for an incident in which the personnel involved were found to be reckless.<\/p>\n

It is worth noting that, in any case, neither Israel nor the US has ever ratified the Rome Statute. Despite that, Cox explained, it still provides a useful framework, in this case because the IDF\u2019s doctrinal application of the law of armed conflict, specifically when it comes to war crimes, is almost identical to that in the statute.<\/p>\n

Another question is whether the wider combat context should be considered. While this WCK convoy had not been hijacked, is it relevant that other, previous convoys had?<\/p>\n

‘They weren’t operating in a vacuum,’ they were in a combat scenario<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis really gets to the essence of how LOAC is applied to combat operations,\u201d Cox said. \u201cThis is often what\u2019s missed in public discourse, the fact that the personnel who are responsible for this outcome are not solely responsible for the process that led to this strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey weren\u2019t operating in a vacuum. If they\u2019re in a combat scenario where they know that their adversary deliberately and routinely hides among the civilian population, deliberately doesn\u2019t wear a uniform that would differentiate between them and the civilian population, then of course [the IDF is] going to make a determination based on their knowledge of the battlespace, and not just what they\u2019re seeing in the drone\/video feed.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Cox said is so often overlooked is that Hamas is responsible for how it fights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith militaries of countries that respect and care about implementing international law, the reason we wear uniforms, the reason we differentiate ourselves from the civilian population is that we are focused on military objectives.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when Hamas and PIJ and various insurgent factions don\u2019t do this, then of course, there are going to be examples of essentially mistaken identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is taken into account when assessing whether the IDF\u2019s determination of the nature of the convoy was reasonable under the circumstances, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of public commentary ends up either inadvertently or deliberately finding a way to blame Israel when they\u2019re completely ignoring Hamas\u2019s responsibility,\u201d he emphasized.<\/p>\n

In general, Cox said, most foreign affairs departments are \u201cso far removed\u201d from conflict and armed conflict, especially the law of armed conflict, that they \u201creally can\u2019t be trusted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this constant struggle between military personnel and foreign affairs personnel, where foreign affairs will just jump in without realizing how ignorant they are when it comes to armed conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another element to this discussion, he said, is that international law is \u201cvery often utilized as a convenient excuse to denounce Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been happening since October 7<\/a>, where foreign ministries or prime ministers are looking for an excuse to criticize Israel, and the convenient, expedient way to do that is to rely on international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cox also pointed out that, sadly, war crimes are committed by almost every army in almost every conflict.<\/p>\n

The condemnation of Israel\u2019s handling of the WCK incident links back to one of two things, Cox said: ignorance or \u201cdeliberate disinformation where people are looking for a reason to criticize or condemn Israel, and then they \u201cwork backwards from there, and international law is a tool that they use.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some commenters and critics of Cox have accused him of a pro-Israel agenda, he said that he disputes this.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I genuinely believed, based on my understanding of the factual circumstances that have been conveyed to the public, that the WCK convoy attack was a war crime, I would say so.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t me trying to be pro-Israel; this is me trying to be pro-law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy bias, if anything, is that I\u2019m trying to protect the integrity of international law involving armed conflict and how it actually works in practice. So if I have a bias, that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On April 1, 2024, the IDF mistakenly killed seven international food aid workers working for the World Central…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1028345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[70,13854,4784,1815,99,50,44442,365501],"class_list":["post-1028344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-gaza","tag-gaza-war","tag-idf","tag-interview","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-war-crimes","tag-world-central-kitchen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117170033706243521","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1028344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1028345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1028344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1028344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1028344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}