Posted on 04/10/24
| News Source: Arutz-7
Fifty-six Democratic members of the US Congress have penned a letter to US President Joe Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, calling on them to withhold the transfer of offensive arms to Israel, following the deaths of World Central Kitchen workers earlier this month.
Announcing the move on social media, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin) wrote, "Big news! Our letter to withhold offensive arms transfers to Israel picked up steam today. We added 16 signers for our final push - 56 Members of Congress total. A shift is underway!"
"The Israeli airstrike that killed seven WCKitchen aid workers, including an American citizen, was absolutely horrifying and unacceptable," Pocan wrote.
"Today, I called on the Biden Admin to withhold offensive arms transfers to Israel with Rep. McGovern, Jan Schakowsky, and 37 other colleagues."
The event occurred on April 1, 2024, during an operation to transfer humanitarian aid from the WCK to the Gaza Strip. The investigation found that the forces identified a gunman on one of the aid trucks, following which they identified an additional gunman.
After the vehicles left the warehouse where the aid had been unloaded, one of the commanders mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles and that these were Hamas terrorists. The forces did not identify the vehicles in question as being associated with WCK.
Following a misidentification by the forces, the forces targeted the three WCK 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 strikes on the three vehicles were carried out in serious violation of the commands and IDF Standard Operating Procedures," the IDF stressed.