House Democrats called on President Joe Biden to stop sending weapons to Israel following the country's drone strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza.
Dozens of House Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., sent a letter to Biden requesting that the United States stop sending weapons to Israel until an independent investigation into the Israeli Defense Forces’ drone strike is finished.
“We strongly urge your administration to conduct a thorough investigation into this airstrike to determine how the aid convoy could have been mistakenly targeted despite coordinating their movements with the Israeli military and traveling in clearly marked vehicles," the letter reads, according to The Washington Times.
On Friday, the IDF dismissed two officers and reprimanded three others over the airstrike.
Israel took responsibility for the strike, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a “tragic event in which our forces unintentionally harmed non-combatants in the Gaza Strip.”
The letter from House Democrats called the incident a "shockingly unacceptable mistake.”
“In light of the recent strike against aid workers and the ever-worsening humanitarian crisis, we believe it is unjustifiable to approve these weapons transfers,” the letter reads.
The incident involving the death of the aid workers has drawn comparisons with the August 29, 2021, incident in Kabul, Afghanistan, in which a U.S. hellfire missile mistakenly hit a vehicle it believed held terrorists. The Biden administration's Defense Department acknowledged that the attack, which killed 10 civilians including seven children, was a "tragic mistake."
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