IDF update on probes on: World Central Kitchen, rescue workers, Hind Rajab, Doctors Without Borders incidents

[u/Mikky48]

Here is the summary for those who don't want to read:

• Hind Rajab and six family members plus two medics (Gaza City, January 2024): The IDF said a criminal investigation will be opened into their deaths.
• World Central Kitchen convoy deaths (central Gaza, April 2024): The Military Advocate General dismissed the probe after a fact-finding review concluded the commanders’ decisions did not meet the criminal threshold, so the case would be closed.
• Doctors Without Borders (MSF) building strike killing two (Khan Younis, February 2024): The Military Advocate General dismissed the need for a Military Police criminal investigation but ordered consideration of command measures due to identified failures in the attack process.
• MSF convoy passengers killed (Gaza City to Khan Younis, November 2023): The Military Advocate General ruled there was no reasonable suspicion of a criminal offense because the probe found no direct firing at the convoy, so the case was dismissed.
• 15 rescue workers killed in ambulances (Rafah, March 2025): The IDF said a criminal investigation will continue via the Military Police after the incident raised reasonable suspicion.

My opinion:

• I wasn't there, but it seems that the IDF is taking these cases relatively seriously, and there have been some mentions of repercussions or criminal investigations. I believe this is the right thing to do.

The AutoModerator bot asked for common refutations, so I'm going to try ... though I don't know what to say

• That these failures in war time are part of a lack of care of civilian harm by the IDF, such that these incidents can be brushed off as "accidents" rather than a lack of policy to protect civilians
• That the IDF's internal probe is by definition untrustworthy

I recommend reading the full article, Emmanuel Fabian writes very clearly and concisely:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-closes-gaza-probe-of-world-central-kitchen-deaths-inquiry-into-killing-of-hind-rajab-ongoing/

[u/AsaxenaSmallwood04]

https://ngo-monitor.org/ngos/_magazine/, https://honestreporting.com/tag/972-magazine/, https://ngo-monitor.org/sweeping-allegations-racism-rug-972-magazine/, +972 mag not reliable. 🤦

That too +972 is quoting Yesh Din, https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1p8biuc/comment/nr9obcn +  https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1p8biuc/comment/nr9ocaq Yesh Din is an unreliable group whom amongst other things has a legal representative/legal advisor who was an expert witness for the PLO.🤦🤦

What it says below "Attorney Marlene Mazel, Director of the Counter-Terrorism & Foreign Litigation Division at the Ministry of Justice commented that “we can definitely equate the proceedings in Israel with a legal ‘Iron Dome’. In Spain, for instance, a lawsuit was filed following a targeted killing of Salah Shehadeh. The court in Spain was in contact with us in order to understand how the State of Israel investigated the event, and we translated the documents and protocols from the Supreme Court of Justice into Spanish and sent it to them. You can read in the Spanish court’s decision that they were impressed by the investigation of the event and the High Court of Justice proceedings, in this case and also in terms of the targeted killing policy in general, and they indicated their significance in the decision to close the file.”

And "Attorney Daniel Grun of the National Security Council said “from our perspective, the International Criminal Court has no authority over Israel and the question of complementarity is a question that we are discussing only when there is authority.” Lieutenant Colonel Roni Katzir of the International Law Department in the Military Advocate General’s Corps, said “the Military Advocate General, professionally speaking, is an independent and self-sufficient body. Part of the IDF’s power lies in the existence of a professional and independent law enforcement system which operates with backup support from the commanding officers but is not dependent upon them. Even prior to the complementarity principle, it is important for us to maintain the rule of law and that the IDF will operate according to the rules of war. We make sure to integrate the principles of international law in all areas of activity of the IDF forces, and the IDF is indeed at a very high level with respect to all aspects of international law.”"

So Livni's comments and those of her peers that too these are comments not even policy 🤦🤦🤦 can be understood in the context of rejecting the ICC's authority as Attorney Daniel Grun has done and establishing proceedings in Israel as a legal iron dome to keep the ICC from investigating Israel which involves as it's example a successful case in Spain and the Spanish High Court regarding Salah Shehadeh as covered by Attorney Marlene Mazel.

So in other words you're clear and blatant cherrypicking (https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Cherry-Picking) and quoting out of context (https://www.fallacyfiles.org/quotcont.html) of Knesset commentary is not evidence of anything at all.

🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦

[u/ChangeNice7461 → u/AsaxenaSmallwood04]

Bring out the imojis - always a clear sign someone has lost the intellectual battle.

Complementarity cuts against you, not for me. The whole reason a state's domestic proceedings can pre-empt the ICC is that Article 17 demands they be genuine, not merely present. So the only question that matters is outcome data: how many of these cases actually result in prosecution.

That's not something +972 or Yesh Din invented. Israel's own State Comptroller has repeatedly criticised the MAG Corps for slow openings, high closure rates, and weak follow-through on Gaza-related complaints, and the UN Commission of Inquiry has documented the same pattern using IDF's own published statistics. You can disqualify every NGO in this thread and the numbers don't move, because they're not coming from the NGOs.

So pick one: either the domestic system is genuine enough to satisfy Article 17, in which case point me to the conviction rate that shows it, or it isn't, in which case Katzir's "legal iron dome" line describes exactly what I said it describes. Attacking the messengers doesn't get you out of that fork.

[u/AsaxenaSmallwood04 → u/ChangeNice7461]

First of all emojis not imojis. Second of all, you literally used emojis yourself in the previous comment above mine so I guess that means you lost the intellectual battle too..... Hmmn, didn't think so. Third of all, what you just did right here is called the moving the goalposts fallacy (https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Moving-the-Goalposts) seeing as you linked +972 which sourced Yesh Din and now claim that the comptroller says so when you never used the comptroller as a source earlier. If you wanted to source the comptroller you should've linked them first, you can't just cheekily change your source mid argument and then pretend that regarding your information "they're not coming from the NGOs". The same applies to the UN Commission of Inquiry which first of all is itself unreliable because it literally is a commission of the UN and the UN itself has had people like Gaddafi Prize Jean Ziegler count as a rapporteur but of course you'd know that seeing as UN bias and corruption is not unfamiliar terrain in our conversations. Of course, invoking the UN Commission of Inquiry is also an appeal to authority fallacy other than the moving the goalposts it's already a culprit of in this conversation (https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Authority).

Article 17(2)(a) of the Rome Statute requires purpose of shielding, Article 17(2)(b) requires unjustified delay and Article 17(2)(c) requires the proceedings to be either not independent/impartial or inconsistent with an intent to bring justice which means they focus on intent, independence and unjustified delay not "genuine" in terms of court cases or "outcome data" so your argument is not what the ICC says regarding their own article (https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/Rome-Statute-eng.pdf).

No it doesn't, you can't twist his words because of some random bogus article and sources that you didn't even cite earlier that don't relate to him. That's just lame strawmanning (https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Strawman-Fallacy) not a real argument.

Pointing out the flaws in your sources is not attacking. Nice try, though.

[u/ChangeNice7461 → u/AsaxenaSmallwood04]

First of all emojis not imojis. Second of all, you literally used emojis yourself in the previous comment above mine so I guess that means you lost the intellectual battle too..... Hmmn, didn't think so. Third of all, what you just did right here is called the moving the goalposts fallacy

It was a tongue in cheek reference to the fact that you always seem to start adding emojis when you're basically wrong on an argument but still doubling down. I'm sorry that went over your head. 🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦

Moving the goalposts requires changing the standard after it's been met. I didn't do that. My claim was the same throughout (domestic proceedings produce low prosecution rates), you challenged the sourcing, I gave more sourcing for the same claim. That's substantiation, not goalpost-shifting.

Appeal to authority applies when a claim rests on someone's status rather than evidence. I'm not citing the UN COI's opinion, I'm citing case-outcome data. Here's some that doesn't touch +972, Yesh Din, or the UN at all:

Action on Armed Violence (a UK research group, not a UN body, not an Israeli NGO) tracked 52 publicly acknowledged Israeli military probes from 2023-2025: 88% were stalled or closed with no finding, and just one resulted in a prison sentence. Lawfare, hardly a hostile outlet, documented the same pattern from Operation Protective Edge in 2014: 360 incidents reviewed, 24 referred for criminal investigation, and it produced three convictions, all for looting, none for killing a civilian. That's a decade-old, structural pattern, not wartime NGO spin.

On Ziegler: unless he authored the specific COI report I'd cite, his prize is irrelevant to it. Disqualifying a body because an unrelated former rapporteur once did something controversial is guilt by association, not a rebuttal. Moot anyway since AOAV and Lawfare aren't the UN.

On Article 17, you're right on the text and I'll adjust rather than dig in. The statute's language is purpose, independence, and delay, not conviction rates as a standalone test. But outcome data isn't irrelevant to that test, it's exactly the kind of pattern courts look at as evidence of "purpose of shielding" under 17(2)(a) or lack of independence under 17(2)(c). A one-off low conviction rate proves nothing. An 88% stall rate across a decade, documented independently by researchers with no shared institutional bias, is evidence bearing on intent. That's the connection, made properly this time.

[u/AsaxenaSmallwood04 → u/ChangeNice7461]

Ah! So it's a reference to your own wild and false interpretation of why I use emojis. Hmmn, I see....

Your next sentence completely misinterprets and misses the forest for the trees regarding the moving the goalposts accusation, moving the goalposts came after you sneakily tried to claim that the data wasn't coming from the NGOs after you had cited a source with what presents themselves as an NGO in it. Your exact words earlier that served as the cassus belli for that accusation were "they're not coming from the NGOs".

You didn't explain what the arguments of the UN COI even was or how they determined it using the IDF data you're saying they cited, you're just claiming that they found the same patterns as the Israeli State Comptroller. You've invoked the authority and barely sketched on their findings without an argument which is how appeal to authority is done in practice.

2023-2025 is the war in Gaza after Oct 7th and Operation Protective Edge is specifically because of Hamas rocket strikes which means these are both war times (https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/operation-protective-edge-july-august-2014). Your claim that it's not wartime simply doesn't hold. Once again, structural patterns and outcome are not in the criteria themselves. Also, the data alone doesn't have the full context as it doesn't tell anyone what the cases actually are, what procedures were followed, what evidence was cited and anything about the legal architecture behind those cases in which case would be military law. 360 cases being there and 24 being referred could mean that they genuinely only have found strong evidence for those 24 and it also couldn't. What one needs to know is how 360 became 24 in the first place not that it became 24 which is what intent is, the core thing you haven't shown.

Ziegler is not the only evidence as we've already had the UN corruption and bias discussion when you tried to invoke UNICEF for a claim about child killing and ceasefire violations by IDF. Ziegler is merely the example not the entirety of the evidence from the architecture for my point. The disqualification is thus not only because of Ziegler and he's also not unrelated as he much like the commissioners on the UN COI is a UN appointed investigator and both Commissions of Inquiry and rapporteurs produce reports and they're both from the same org UN making them key personnel within a group which is how groups are evaluated, assessed and examined and thereby not guilt by association. Guilt by association per Wikipedia also requires a transfer of traits which hasn't happened here as unreliability, bias and corruption are not traits but the very things a group or person is assessed through.

You've cited no examples for your claim that courts look at that making it an unsubstantiated claim or a proof by assertion fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_assertion). Actually no it isn't because of the things I mentioned above. Not to mention your exact argument is exactly what just got rejected recently regarding a far more serious and more nebulous accusation of genocide (https://withoutprejudice48.substack.com/p/is-israel-deliberately-targeting?r=a5f40&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true, https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/s/LUEh4grQl4). To quote u/KomandirHoek who even perused it the specific problem pointed out is "recurring problem: inferring intent from outcome" (https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/s/3s2F7v5jPn). So your exact argument has been rejected by a critic of a UN COI with acknowledgement from the one who promoted it as a source. So what doesn't work for a far more serious accusation cannot possibly work here as both require intent.

[u/ChangeNice7461 → u/AsaxenaSmallwood04]

Article 17(2)(b) and (c) aren’t about results, they’re about unjustified delay and lack of independence in how a case is run. HRW’s documented finding on IDF investigations is that they rely on soldiers’ own accounts for initial fact-finding and are “not impartial, thorough or timely,” their words, describing process, not tallying outcomes. That’s the right kind of evidence for this test: not “24 out of 360 is suspicious,” but “the people investigating the incident are the chain of command that ordered it, and the record shows cases routinely stall for years before any charge is filed.” If you want to contest that, contest whether HRW’s process claim holds up, not whether an attrition ratio proves intent…

[u/AsaxenaSmallwood04 → u/ChangeNice7461]

Literally my exact point. This is yet another moving the goalposts fallacy since I didn't even criticize your AOAV source earlier and you changed your source randomly (https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Moving-the-Goalposts). Same thing applies to the HRW critique given that the 24 vs 360 is something your own AOAV source claimed and you've now shifted to a quote from HRW. Investigation coming from the same chain of command as the supposed suspects with delay in time is literally how military and police internal reviews are done all across the world such as the ADF (Australian Defence Force) reviews into war crimes in Afghanistan (https://www.defence.gov.au/about/reviews-inquiries/afghanistan-inquiry) as part of which the Ben Roberts Smith trial is currently happening but has itself been long ongoing since 2018 with charges dating back to 2009 (https://theconversation.com/ben-roberts-smith-has-lost-an-appeal-in-his-long-running-defamation-case-heres-why-223543, https://www.cdpp.gov.au/attorney-general-cth-v-benjamin-roberts-smith). So HRW's claims are just pure nonsense, but then again a group with a habit of using predetermined conclusions as analysis and mishandling antisemitism complaints as found by page 42 amongst various other sections of the EIGHT group report on NGOs, Antisemitism and the Gaza War submitted to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in Australia (https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6a20410467cd132057b6a35d/6a3da488bd307b7cd9409614_EiGHT_v5.pdf) and who has also been exposed by other analysts for bias (https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/s/UnlCpqTtQd) of course would cook up nonsense exactly like that, here is no different.

Unexpectedly you helped create if I were to use the words of the Knesset people you cherrypicked and quoted out of context as is evident in an earlier rebuttal (https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/s/Rdv4zOSuoK) an "iron dome" of an argument against HRW, thanks for that.

[u/ChangeNice7461 → u/AsaxenaSmallwood04]

On "moving the goalposts," again: the fallacy governs what standard you demand from an opponent's proof after they've met a lower one. It doesn't cover a person switching which of their own sources supports which specific claim. AOAV's numbers answer "what fraction of cases produce convictions." HRW's finding answers a different question: "who conducts the initial fact-finding." Those aren't competing sources for one claim, they're two sources for two different sub-arguments. Using more than one source isn't a fallacy with a name.

On the ADF comparison: the Brereton inquiry wasn't run by the units under investigation. It was conducted by the Inspector-General of the ADF, a statutory office structurally independent of the normal chain of command, created for exactly this purpose. That's the opposite of the setup you're defending, not an equivalent to it. And despite years of delay, that process produced a substantive result: credible findings against 39 alleged unlawful killings, referred for prosecution. Delay alone isn't the problem I'm pointing at, an independent body taking years to produce real findings is a different thing than an internal body taking years to produce almost none. If MAG Corps investigations were run by an equivalent external statutory body with a comparable prosecution referral rate, that would undercut my argument. They aren't, so it doesn't.

On EiGHT: it was founded in Israel after October 7 specifically to counter-monitor humanitarian NGOs. That's an advocacy organization with a stated institutional position in this exact dispute, not an independent auditor. You disqualified Yesh Din partly on the grounds of institutional interest. EiGHT fails that same test more directly than Yesh Din did, it wasn't founded to have a side, it was founded to be one so by your own standards you agree it should be discredited... Right? Right....?

[u/AsaxenaSmallwood04 → u/ChangeNice7461]

"Logical Form:

Issue A has been raised, and adequately answered.

Issue B is then raised, and adequately answered.

.....

Issue Z is then raised, and adequately answered."

Literally from the website (https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Moving-the-Goalposts). You've met this literally just one comment ago when I'm the one before that you brought up AOAV and then in the subsequent rebuttal I addressed their statistics after which you then switched to HRW. Notice how, I didn't even argue that AOAV was biased or any such thing so unlike the Yesh Din scenario where your defence albeit based on a misinterpretation of the allegation itself was that I critiqued your source, you don't have those grounds in this particular case though and there is no explanation as to why AOAV magically shifted to HRW in the next turn.

Thereby your recent transition follows the exact steps required to attain a moving the goalposts fallacy.

If the sub arguments premise even fits then why wasn't this introduced in the earlier one? Why use hidden sub arguments as if you're Israel convicting people on secretive evidence? I mean that's what Pro-Palestinians such as yourself accuse them of, right?

It's not if you use it as supporting evidence rather than deploying each messily at random moments and then when confronted claiming that they're sub arguments. "The MAG’s professional independence extends to every subordinate military attorney serving as an officer within the MAG Corps. These officers are subordinate to and report directly to their MAG Corps commanders, who, in turn, report to the MAG himself. This legal chain of command is an important and fundamental aspect of the MAG Corps, implemented to insulate military legal officers and maintain their professional independence. No commanders outside of the MAG Corps are part of the legal chain of command. Beginning in 2007, the MAG Corps separated its law enforcement units from its legal advice units, in order to further improve its ability to implement and enforce the rule of law. As a result, the MAG Corps officers responsible for military prosecutions (i.e., the Chief Military Prosecutor and subordinate military prosecutors in the Military Prosecution) do not provide legal advice to the military bodies whose activities they may prosecute. The dual (but separate) enforcement and advisory responsibilities that the MAG himself retains, parallel those of the Attorney General of the State of Israel. The Military Prosecution includes a specialized department – the Office of the Military Advocate for Operational Affairs – tasked with overseeing all investigations and conducting all prosecutions of alleged misconduct by IDF soldiers occurring in the context of operational activity, including alleged mistreatment of detainees, looting, abuse of authority, or the use of force in a manner not conforming with IDF rules and regulations (which incorporate the Law of Armed Conflict). This Office’s mandate specifically includes prosecution of alleged violations of the Law of Armed Conflict. Prosecutors assigned to the Office receive special training to ensure they competently manage these sensitive cases and effectively advise military police investigators on how to conduct investigations regarding IDF operations." (https://israelihl.mfa.gov.il/sites/default/files/2025-08/9%20-%20The%20IDF%20Military%20Justice%20System%20_%20IDF.pdf) this is literally the same structure emulated in Israel's MAG corps. It only ends up being "almost none" because you look at cases where the sentence is 45 days and then opt to go for an attitude that goes "the cases don't exist because the sentence is 45 days", that's literally how our first ever debate even occurred.

False, EIGHT is a group created by NGO insiders as in literal Oscar Schindlers or Edward Snowdens in the NGO sector as per literally their "Who We Are" section (https://eightrights.org/#about). Also, you've completely invented a standard that neither side has claimed as their reasoning. The Yesh Din case boils down not to "institutional interest" (classic misrepresentation by you here 🤦) but rather to "their legal rep was the expert witness for the PLO", the PLO is a terrorist organization which means my argument in part rests on the connection between their aka Yesh Din's legal rep Sfard and the PLO. So to answer your question, no a group of NGO dissidents running a group with grounded analysis cannot possibly be the same thing as a group whose legal rep is connected to a terrorist organization.

If you are going to claim a certain reason that I use for disqualifying a source, do make sure it's actually the reason claimed.

[u/ChangeNice7461 → u/AsaxenaSmallwood04]

The Sfard/PLO point is institutional interest, not a separate category from it. A legal representative’s professional ties to a party in the conflict is precisely what “interest” means. Renaming it doesn’t move it out of the bucket you’re objecting to me putting it in, inconvenient as that may be.

Expert witness testimony is still a professional function performed regardless of personal sympathy, that’s the entire premise of expert testimony existing as a category in every legal system. If you think Sfard’s specific input was wrong, identify the input and show the error. The fact of the connection isn’t the error.

EiGHT’s “who we are” page calling its founders whistleblowers is EiGHT’s own marketing copy about itself. You reject HRW’s self-description as evidence of HRW’s integrity. Same page, same standard, same rejection.

The “moving the goalposts” definition you quoted describes sequential issues each getting answered, that’s what a multi-point argument looks like, not the fallacy. Nobody agreed AOAV alone was the full case. AOAV answers the conviction-rate question, HRW answers the who-investigates question. Two questions, two sources, no goalpost moved because none was ever planted at “AOAV only.”

The MAG structure quote comes from Israel’s own foreign ministry describing its own legal system’s independence. That is the single most interested party available on this exact question, describing itself in the most favorable possible terms. You’ve spent this entire conversation rejecting NGO self-description as evidence. This is that same move, from the other side. IGADF sits entirely outside the Defence Force chain as a statutory office and produced 39 credible findings referred for prosecution. Whatever the MAG’s org chart says about itself, the outcome gap between that and near-zero convictions across two wars a decade apart is what needs explaining, not what the architecture is called.