Here is an actual exchange between US drone operators: 

-Roger. Received Target 15.

-See all those people standing down there.

-Have individuals with weapons.

-He’s got a weapon too. 

-Have 5-6 individuals with AK47s!!

-He’s got an RPG!

-All right we got a guy with an RPG. I’m gonna fire.

-Okay– no hold on. Let’s come around.

 -Light ’em all up.

-Come on, fire [hear firing sounds}.

-Keep shoot’n, keep shoot’n.

-God damn it, Kyle.

-All right, ha ha ha, I hit ‘em…

-Oh yeah, look at all those dead bastards.

-Nice.

[wounded try to crawl to help, but when help arrives]

-Come on, let us shoot!

-This is Bushmaster Seven, roger. Engage.

-One-eight, engage, clear.

-Fire.

-Come on!

-Clear.

-Oh yeah, look at that. Right through the windshield.

-Ha ha. [laughs]

-I think they just drove over a body. Really?

-Yeah [laughs].

-Maybe it was just a visual illusion, but it looked like it.

[troops carry 2 small bodies of children, injured]

-Hey uh.  I need to get the Brads to drop rads.

-I got a wounded girl we need to take to Rustamiyah.

-Well it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.

-That’s right.

It sounds like what the chatter amongst Israeli soldiers might have been when they launched the missiles that killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK) in Gaza last Monday.  They were picked off and murdered by not one, not two, but three Israeli missiles. 

The dialogue above actually took place 17 years ago not in Deir al-Balah, but in a suburb of Baghdad. What I transcribed above is the audio recording from a classified US military video that showed unprovoked US troops firing 30 mm cannon fire from a helicopter gun-sight on unarmed “targets” in a residential street in New Baghdad.  

Film shows the murders of a dozen Iraqis, incl. two injured children. All committed by US army. Watch this, under 3 minutes.

In what has been called an “indiscriminate slaying”, US troops used helicopter gunships to kill a dozen people on a street corner; two were Reuters news staff, a driver/guard Saeed Chmagh, age 40, and a 22-year-old photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen. The rest were called  “collateral murders”.  A good Samaritan driving an SUV stopped to help the few injured (not dead) who were crawling to safety – the Samaritan was killed and his two children in the car were seriously injured. Though the soldier wanted the children to go to the US field hospital, his superior insisted they be handed over to Iraqi police instead. 

For two years Reuters demanded answers as to what had happened to their staff. The US military stalled, then investigated the incident only to conclude that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own “Rules of Engagement”. WikiLeaks released the video leaked to them and the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008.  

Above is the video that will likely keep Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a concrete windowless box, in solitary confinement in a US prison, for the rest of his life.  As a journalist and founder of Wikileaks, Assange dared to leak the video which  whistleblower US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning leaked to him. We all know what the US did to him (and to her) as a result.

Left: Saeed and Namir are alive, centre: they are killed, right: van stopped to help; below, van hit by another drone

Israel’s excuses for killing aid workers from WCK (hint: killing aid workers is a war crime)

By now, we’ve all seen the aftermath of the Israeli missile strikes that killed seven WCK staff, as they escaped their three bombed vehicles, last week.  Israel first claimed it was an “an unintended strike”; a mistake, an accident. Then they claimed no one knew about what happened—just as the Americans said about the collateral damage “incident.” Netanyahu called it “a tragic incident of an unintended strike of our forces…  This happens in wartime.”  Then, Israeli military spokesmen described the murders as “a lot of mistakes.”   After all it was after 10 o’clock at night, and the military didn’t have clear vision.  The military spokesmen said the commander had, “mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles and that these were Hamas terrorists…a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures.”  Netanyahu promised, “We are thoroughly looking into it … and will do everything to ensure it does not happen again.” 

Typical– nothing out of the ordinary for Israel in their war on Gaza.

According to the respected British Medical Journal, since 7 Oct. 2023, Israel has killed more than 200 aid workers (212, according to the organisation Humanitarian Outcomes) in Gaza; murdered 138 Palestinian and nine Israeli health care staff and arrested 212 Palestinian health care workers – all before the end of January 2024.  

The world is now reeling from the seven latest deaths of aid workers who had just unloaded 1,000 tonnes of humanitarian food aid.  There will be more deaths of aid workers to come – undoubtedly.  So Israel is now in trouble because, after killing 33,000 Gazans, Israel blew up some (not all) white aid workers with a US-based aid agency. 

And now two senior Israeli officers have been fired to show that Israel’s taking this very seriously.  But as I say– this happened because of, not in spite of, the rules of engagement

What are the rules of engagement? No –not the complicated formal rules– the real rules of engagement.

An imagined conversation between an Israeli soldier and his superior

Here is a possible conversation between an Israeli soldier and his superior after the superior says “kill them all”.  

Q:  But Sir, what about Israeli soldiers taken hostage?

A: Everyone is Hamas, soldier.

Q: But sir, what about Israeli civilian hostages being dragged back to Gaza? Are they Hamas?

A: Yes, as I said, soldier everyone is Hamas

Q: But sir, what about babies?

A: I told you, everyone is Hamas.

Q: But sir, what about Israeli hostages in their underwear speaking Hebrew and waving white flags?

A: What part of everyone is Hamas do you not understand, soldier?

Q: But sir, what about surgeons, and nurses, and journalists, and…

A: All Hamas, soldier.

Q: But Sir, what about the World Central Kitchen, beloved of Israel, groomed by Israel to replace UNRWA, who gave their route and their coordinates to Israel, whose vehicles were clearly marked…and…oh, never mind. 

KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM!

For an excellent 18 min. podcast on what really happened (and Israel’s deliberate targetting) the World Central Kitchen (WCK), on 4 April, listen to this.

Featured photo at the top: Palestinians walk past the ruins of houses and buildings destroyed during Israel’ military offensive in the northern Gaza Strip March 31, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa)