Foreign Relations

Australia Summons Israel's Ambassador Over Closed World Central Kitchen Probe

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Courtroom-sketch editorial illustration of a destroyed white aid-convoy SUV with its roof and doors torn open by a strike, standing on scrubby ground beside a makeshift tarpaulin shelter, a young man in a white shirt at right with his hands on his hips looking at the wreck and distant figures by a low concrete wall beyond, drawn in warm ochre and slate-blue chalk and pastel strokes with cross-hatching on sepia newsprint.

Australia has summoned Israel's ambassador in Canberra, Hillel Newman, after the Military Advocate General's Corps closed the April 2024 strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including Australian Zomi Frankcom, without a criminal investigation. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia is outraged and that the decision falls far short of the accountability it expects. Wong also instructed Australia's ambassador to Israel to convey that position. The Military Advocate General found that despite serious failures in the assessment that Hamas operatives were traveling in the vehicles, the commanders' decisions did not raise reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct. The same rulings ordered criminal investigations in two other Gaza incidents.

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