Senior Australian minister Ed Husic has accused the Israeli government of “a systematic failure” to observe the laws of war in Gaza, while insisting the west must “demonstrate our values” to avoid charges of hypocrisy.
But the Coalition opposition refused to say explicitly whether the Israeli military had breached international law, saying it “takes more care than Hamas does to protect civilian lives”.
The opposition’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Simon Birmingham, said the world cannot “be so naive as to pretend tragedies and mistakes don’t occur in a war”, but Israel “should be learning from each of these mistakes” and allow more aid into Gaza.
The Australian government has demanded full accountability and transparency from Israel over the triple-strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy last Monday that killed seven humanitarian workers, including the Australian citizen Zomi Frankcom.
Husic said Frankcom and her colleagues joined “nearly 200 humanitarian workers who have lost their lives in this conflict”, citing UN figures.
“I believe this reflects a systematic failure within the Israeli government to genuinely commit to the observance of international humanitarian law,” Husic, the industry minister, told Sky News on Sunday.
“That’s why you’ve seen 33,000 Palestinians killed, 14,500 of which are children, and 77,000 injured – and then on top of that, 200 aid workers [and] 100 journalists.
“I mean, this comes down to a failure by the Israeli government to observe international law distinguishing between combatant and civilian.”
Late on Friday, the Israeli military published a summary of initial findings, saying the strike on the aid vehicles last Monday was “a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the standard operating procedures”.
WCK said it had fully coordinated its movements with the Israel Defense Forces and has demanded an independent investigation.
The IDF said its personnel thought they were targeting Hamas gunmen in the fatal drone strikes. It announced that a major and a colonel would be dismissed from their positions, while three others would be formally reprimanded.
Husic said “it would be the easiest route to use the ‘bad apples’ defence here, that it was a couple of people that operated outside of policy”, but he argued broader changes were needed.
He said the Australian government’s plan to appoint its own special adviser to scrutinise the investigation was “a very big step by our government” to ensure “we get to the bottom of what’s happened”.
Husic said the Australian government had called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza since December, but was also demanding Hamas release the more than 130 hostages it holds in order to make any ceasefire “durable”.
He said the international landscape was “the most contestable it has been in decades” and “the worst thing for the west is a perception of hypocrisy when it comes to crises like this”.
“We need to be able to demonstrate our values, and in particular our defence of international humanitarian law,” Husic said.
“And the Coalition has been utterly silent on this, or at other times been very weak, particularly this week, in acknowledging that Israel crossed a line, and that Zomi Frankcom paid the price for the crossing of that line.”
In a later interview on the ABC’s Insiders program, Birmingham said Frankcom’s death “shouldn’t have happened” and was “wrong”.
“It’s a tragedy in a sea of tragedies that dates all the way back through to October 7, when of course we saw another Australian, Galit Carbone, also killed, at the hands though of Hamas who instigated the cycle of violence that has been occurring since October 7 through their barbaric terrorist actions,” he said.
Birmingham declined to say whether the incident that killed Frankcom was a breach of international law, arguing he was “not either qualified nor in position of all of the facts to give that legal judgment”.
“We have expectations in terms of the investigations that should occur, but we cannot turn away or be so naive as to pretend that tragedies and mistakes don’t occur in a war. They do. They happen all the time. It’s a terrible thing. We wish it wasn’t the case.”
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and his ministers have previously rebuked the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for saying in his initial response that “this happens in wartime”.
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, told Guardian Australia’s Australian Politics podcast this was a “deeply insensitive thing” for Netanyahu to say.
Asked repeatedly whether Israel needed to “take greater care” to protect civilian lives, Birmingham said: “Israel needs to take care with the protection of civilian lives … consistent with its obligations under international law.”
Birmingham said mistakes should trigger changes, but Israel was being held to “far higher” standards than was applied to Hamas, which hid behind civilians and civilian infrastructure and was committed to the elimination of Israel.
“That’s why that terrorist organisation needs to be removed from any position of influence, governance or threat, such that we can actually move into a more peaceful negotiation environment in the future,” Birmingham said.
