‘Zomi deserved more’: Family, PM blast Israel ‘no-fault’ finding on aid worker’s death

Anthony Albanese and the family of Zomi Frankcom have blasted Israel’s decision not to pursue criminal charges against the soldiers who launched the fatal strike on the Australian aid worker and six colleagues in Gaza as the prime minister vowed to continue pressing for justice over the killings.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong declared she did not have confidence in the Israeli investigation, but rejected calls by the Greens and other Israeli critics to expel the nation’s top diplomat in Australia.

Israeli ambassador Hillel Newman defended the probe as thorough and independent after he was called in by Wong for a rebuke on Thursday morning, hours after the finding was published.

Albanese told parliament: “Israel’s decision to close their investigation without criminal proceedings is an outrage and it falls far short of the accountability that we expect and consistently called for on behalf of Australia.”

Saying he had personally raised the issue with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, Albanese said the government would announce further steps after consulting Frankcom’s family.

The investigation by Israel’s chief military prosecutor found there was “no reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct” in the strike on the World Central Kitchen workers in April 2024 as they delivered humanitarian aid to a warehouse in Gaza.

The formal decision came only hours after Wong called for “full accountability” over the deaths, as she honoured Frankcom at an event in Canberra on Wednesday to launch a humanitarian award in her name.

Wong blasted the timing of the announcement as “especially insulting and hurtful” to the Frankcom family and to aid workers generally.

But she made clear the government would not expel Newman because it would limit Australia’s ability to engage with the Israeli government.

Wong said Israel had not provided satisfactory answers on a range of questions, including why, even if the first strike on the aid convoy was a tragic mistake, two more followed and why the attack occurred in a humanitarian fire control zone.

The Australian government has also not been provided the drone audio of the strike despite repeated requests.

“We do not have confidence in the IDF’s military advocate general’s process, given the many unanswered questions,” she said.

Wong acknowledged it had been a “difficult” period for the Australia-Israel relationship, recent years having been marked by acrimony over the war in Gaza, antisemitism in Australia and recognition of Palestinian statehood.

The Frankcom family, including Zomi’s brother Mal, said they were “deeply disappointed” by the outcome of the inquiry and decried the timing of the announcement as “an insult to my sister’s memory”.

“Zomi and her colleagues deserve more than an internal, opaque process that ends with a short statement by the Israeli military absolving their soldiers of criminal wrongdoing,” the family said in a statement, repeating their calls for an independent inquiry.

Speaking after his meeting with Wong at Parliament House, Newman said it was a coincidence that the investigation findings were released on World Humanitarian Day and declared he had personally intervened to speed up the probe.

Newman said there had been a “thorough investigation by an independent authority” and that it had been conducted with “total independence”.

“Not every operational failure means that there’s criminal liability,” Newman said.

“One has to respect international bodies that work according to law and evidence and come to a conclusion.

“One cannot judge a conclusion and say it’s [incorrect] or unjustified just because it doesn’t tally with what I want.”

On the timing of the release, he said he was “personally involved in making sure that this case goes forward and comes to closure,” and involved Herzog directly.

Asked for his message to the Frankcom family, Newman said: “My message to the family is that Israel is full of sorrow and solidarity with the family, but it was not intentional.”

He again stopped short from directly apologising to the family, saying this could carry legal consequences.

On the calls for him to be expelled, Newman replied: “We’ve got a lot of haters out there.”

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi said she was “appalled” by the ambassador’s comments, arguing he should have been expelled from the country.

“There is no doubt that this is a war crime,” she said of the strike on the convoy as she called for the International Criminal Court to investigate Frankcom’s killing.

The outcome was one of five IDF reports issued on Wednesday into separate incidents. In one case, which made global headlines, five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab died in January 2024 after pleading to be rescued from an attack that had killed her aunt, uncle and three cousins.

The IDF ruled there should be a criminal investigation by the military police into the death of Rajab, her family members, as well as paramedics who sought to come to her aid.

World Central Kitchen, Frankcom’s employer, condemned the outcome and called for an independent inquiry on the grounds that the Israeli military could not credibly investigate its own conduct.

“There has never been any excuse or justification for the attacks, and there is nothing in this account that does so. The decision is inconsistent with the full truth and deeply offensive,” the aid organisation said in a statement.

Frankcom, 43, and six colleagues died on April 1, 2024 when the vehicle they were travelling in was fired upon while delivering aid in Gaza.

The IDF said its officers had “mistakenly believed that the vehicles contained Hamas military operatives and therefore struck the vehicles”.

It claimed that attempts were made to contact representatives of the food charity during “the approximately half-hour period in which the convoy vehicles were tracked on the understanding that they contained Hamas operatives”, but those attempts were unsuccessful.

The Israeli military said the presence of armed security travelling with the convoy “was not co-ordinated with IDF authorities” and the vehicles had deviated from the route arranged in advance, while several people were also mistakenly identified as armed persons.

Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, said the Israeli inquiry had reached the same conclusion as the 2024 independent review by Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, which found the IDF “had not deliberately or knowingly targeted WCK personnel”.

“Regrettably, errors are an inevitable part of warfare, particularly in the complexity of urban warfare against a terror group like Hamas, and the WCK error was a particularly tragic example,” Rubenstein said.

Two Israeli officers were dismissed from their positions and three senior officers were formally reprimanded, according to the Israeli military.

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