Former British spy chief blames Israel for 'systematic targeting' of aid workers in Gaza

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) - Former head of British foreign intelligence agency MI6 has accused Israel of using "systematic targeting" that risked slaughtering innocent people by mistake.

Pressure on the British government is mounting after seven aid workers from the food charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an Israeli strike on Monday in the Gaza Strip. They were nationals of Australia, Poland, the UK and Palestine as well as a US-Canada dual citizen.

It was later confirmed that three were British citizens - James Kirby, James Henderson and John Chapman.

Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, said that incidents showed what happened in Gaza is "systematic."

"My view is that what happened is essentially systematic - of an approach to targeting that has on occasion bordered on the reckless and therefore fundamentally undermines what must be Israel’s political objectives which is to sustain some moral high ground and moral purpose," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today Podcast.

Asked if he thought the seven aid workers died because Israel was prepared to risk blowing off the wrong people if it thinks there is just a chance there is "a bad guy among them," he replied it is "hard not to conclude that insufficient care is being paid to the collateral risk of these operations one way or another."

Younger added: "It is a reminder of how many thousands of innocent people have been caught up in this conflict."

Following the attack, WCK said it was pausing its operations in the region.

The attack has sounded international alarm bells, with many condemning it and demanding a thorough investigation.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas which killed around 1,200 people.

Nearly 33,000 Palestinians have since been killed and over 75,000 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which last week asked Tel Aviv to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.

“Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine...but that famine is setting in,” said the ICJ.