JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted Tuesday that its armed forces “unintentionally” killed seven aid workers in an air strike in Gaza.

“Unfortunately, in the last day there was a tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip,” he said as he left hospital in Jerusalem after a hernia operation.

“It happens in war, we will investigate it right to the end… We are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again.”

The seven victims worked for the US-based World Central Kitchen (WCK), which has been delivering food aid to war-torn Gaza by sea from Cyprus.

It paused its Gaza operations after what it called the “targeted Israeli strike” on Monday. It said those killed were “from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom, a dual citizen of the US and Canada, and Palestine.”

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari earlier said that he had talked to WCK founder celebrity chef Jose Andres to express their “deepest condolences.”

He said the probe would be carried out by the Israeli military’s Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism, and “we will share our findings transparently.”

Israel’s Chief of the General Staff, Herzi Halevi, will “personally review the findings of the initial inquiry tonight,” an army spokesman said.

UN agencies have warned repeatedly that northern Gaza is on the verge of famine, calling the situation a man-made crisis.

The bloodiest-ever Gaza war erupted with the October 7 attack, which resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign, aimed at destroying Hamas, has killed at least 32,916 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

AFP