Barak Ravid, a veteran Israeli diplomatic correspondent and CNN political analyst, joined Anderson Cooper on Tuesday night for a stunning interview about Israel’s airstrike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers earlier in the day.
“What are your sources telling you about this?” Cooper asked the journalist known for his deep sourcing within the IDF.
“Well, Anderson, what I heard from several Israeli officials over the last few hours is that it is clear to everybody that what happened with this strike was a serious violation of the IDF protocols and rules of engagement. Okay. To call it a misidentification or a mistake. You know, that’s the understatement of the century. Okay. And this is not an isolated incident. The reason that we talk about it here is because it’s WCK. It’s a very well-known and famous NGO, but those incidents happen every few days in Gaza,” Ravid answered.
Cooper added, “We’ve seen this throughout this entire time and you earlier had talked about it being a disconnect between what, you know, IDF commanders, maybe at headquarters are thinking and what the troops on the ground are actually doing.”
“You saw that in the video of the IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi, I’m sure that there are a lot of IDF commanders and soldiers in Gaza that watch this video and say, ‘What is he talking about?’ Okay. Because there is a disconnect between how the IDF senior brass is looking at this and how it develops the rules of engagement and the orders, and what happens when those percolate down to the forces in Gaza, especially to the field commanders, the lieutenant colonels, the colonels, the brigade commanders, the battalion commanders, they’re not in the same place as the senior command,” Ravid explained.
Cooper clarified, “You say they’re not in the same place? Both literally. They’re not in Gaza. They’re not in headquarters. And they’re also the ones fighting. And they have a different attitude about, let’s just get this done.”
Ravid replied, “Each commander on the ground has a different interpretation of the orders. And this is why you see what you see.”
Cooper interjected that it sounds like a “recipe for disaster.”
“This is a recipe for a disaster, not only in Gaza but for the destruction of a professional military. Okay. This is not how a professional military conducts its operations. And for years, the IDF was considered not only here in the US, but in the West overall, as a very professional military. And what we’ve seen, in this strike, but in many other strikes that we didn’t talk about, is that this thing during this war, this profession, professionalism has gone away,” Ravid warned.
“And Netanyahu’s response is often, well, this stuff happens. I mean, that he said that about this strike. He said that about the shooting of an Israeli guy who was trying to stop, a terror attack. He said that multiple times,” noted Cooper.
Ravid agreed and added, “This is why this incident shouldn’t come as a surprise. You know, you remember that just a few weeks ago, three Israeli hostages that managed to escape their captors were killed by Israeli soldiers who fired at them even though they were holding a white flag. Okay. And, you know, I spoke to, an Israeli reserve officer who was in the same unit to those soldiers who shot those hostages. And I remember him telling me that the orders are basically from the commanders on the ground is ‘just shoot every man in fighting age.’ Those are the orders, but those are, but that’s not the rules of engagement that is coming from the IDF leadership.”
“They are being instructed to stay on the ground,” Cooper added.
“Exactly. And this is the same situation. Ultimately, the battalion commander or the brigade commander, I'm not sure who authorized the strike. He interprets the orders from the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv differently,” Ravid said.
Watch the video above on CNN.
