Deputy Foreign Minister Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski told lawmakers in parliament that the April 1 death of Damian Soból, 35, and six other aid workers distributing food in Gaza was “shocking and disturbing.”
Poland expects Israel’s “full cooperation” in the investigation opened by Polish prosecutors in Soból’s hometown of Przemyśl in southeastern Poland, Bartoszewski said. The prosecutors “have classified it as a murder,” he said.
Israel conducted a rapid investigation and took responsibility for the deaths, but said the attack that killed the aid workers and their Palestinian driver was a tragic mistake. It shared the findings with the countries that lost citizens in the attack. The Israeli military dismissed two officers and reprimanded three, saying they violated the army’s rules of engagement.
Bartoszewski called the dismissals and disciplinary measures “inadequate” and demanded that the case be tried by an independent court in Israel.
During a debate in the Polish parliament, many lawmakers said the killings should be considered a war crime.
Bartoszewski said Poland was working with other countries whose citizens were killed in the shelling — Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States — to jointly press for a detailed investigation into how vehicles marked as a humanitarian convoy could have become targets of repeated Israeli army shelling.
He stressed that the attack violated all international rules of warfare.
Bartoszewski also said that Poland is demanding compensation for Soból’s family. His body has been returned to Poland.