The Israeli arms company that provided the tools for the murder of Zomi Frankcom and six other World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers will still be handed more than $900 million by Australian taxpayers.
According to Israeli military sources cited in both Western and Israeli media, the drone used to triple strike the WCK convoy — despite the convoy alerting the Israel Defence Force, which knew about the route and time, that it had been targeted — was a Hermes 450 manufactured by Elbit Systems. Over the past 20 years, the IDF has increasingly relied on drones to attack Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza.
In February the ABC revealed the Defence Department had awarded Elbit Systems a $917 million contract, despite equipment previously supplied by the company being torn out of Australian systems due to national security concerns. As Crikey subsequently reported, Elbit Systems has a long history of scandal and complicity in human rights abuses both by the IDF and regimes elsewhere in the world. Earlier that month, Japanese trading giant Itochu Corp’s aviation arm severed ties with Elbit Systems in the wake of the International Court of Justice’s ruling on Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The result of Australia’s defence contract with Elbit Systems — a company not merely with a scandalous record (at one stage it was on the Future Fund’s prohibited investment list) but one also involved in the murder of an Australian engaged in crucial aid work — is that it will be handsomely rewarded by Australians.
The Defence Department has stonewalled Crikey’s efforts to uncover what assessment it undertook of Elbit Systems’ human rights record or of the actions of a major defence contractor in our ally Japan. It has failed to even acknowledge Crikey’s repeated questions about Elbit Systems. The department’s media team is notorious for its refusal to engage with anything other than requests for propaganda from the reporters — in 2020, the auditor-general released a highly critical assessment of the performance of the area.
Overnight, the office of Defence Minister Richard Marles similarly refused to respond to our questions about whether Elbit Systems’ role in the murder of Frankcom and other aid workers would lead to a reassessment of the contract to supply systems for the Australian Defence Force’s infantry fighting vehicles.
For now, despite the fulminations of the prime minister about how “unacceptable” the killing is, Defence and the government appear committed to rewarding a company complicit in the murder of an Australian — and hoping that the media loses interest in Zomi Frankcom and the circumstances in which she was murdered in Gaza.
How should Australia act in response to the death of Zomi Frankcom? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
