{"id":576057,"date":"2026-03-31T10:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/576057\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T10:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:01:10","slug":"zomi-frankcoms-brother-demands-audio-of-deadly-israeli-strike-but-ambassador-says-its-in-the-idfs-hands-israel-gaza-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/576057\/","title":{"rendered":"Zomi Frankcom\u2019s brother demands audio of deadly Israeli strike but ambassador says \u2018it\u2019s in the IDF\u2019s hands\u2019 | Israel-Gaza war"},"content":{"rendered":"

The family of aid worker Zomi Frankcom<\/a> has urged the Albanese government to press Israel for a serious independent investigation into her death, including the release of audio from the drone strike which blew up a humanitarian convoy in Gaza in 2024.<\/p>\n

Wednesday will be the second anniversary of strikes on the World Central Kitchen aid worker\u2019s convoy which killed the 43-year-old Australian<\/a> and six of her colleagues.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s defence force conducted an investigation into the deaths, which resulted in two officers being dismissed and three others being reprimanded.<\/p>\n

In February, Albanese raised the case with Israel\u2019s president<\/a>, Isaac Herzog, during his visit to Australia.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, he called Frankcom\u2019s death \u201ca tragic loss\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll continue to work each and every day to do our best to ensure that there is transparency and appropriate action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

But Frankcom\u2019s brother, Mal Frankcom, said serious outstanding questions remained, including possible consequences for other Israel Defense Forces personnel involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened on 1 April 2024 absolutely devastated my family and many people in the community,\u201d Frankcom said during a visit to federal parliament.<\/p>\n

He said the convoy had been struck three times, \u201cresulting in seven heroic aid workers being left to die on the side of the road\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been told that the case is still under review, while many other high-profile cases have since been closed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that our pursuit of justice and accountability will not be in vain, and that an open and transparent investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frankcom was due to meet the prime minister, Anthony Albanese<\/a> and other federal MPs on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Frankcom called for the audio of drone footage to be released, even if translation from Hebrew was required. Frankcom said the victims\u2019 families had never received proper explanation for the deaths, personal apologies from the Israeli government or compensation.<\/p>\n

Independent MP Zali Steggall said Frankcom represented the best of Australia during her life.<\/p>\n

\"Israel'sIsrael’s ambassador defends investigation into death of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom – video<\/p>\n

\u201cZomi Frankcom embodied all that is good about Australian values and selflessly worked helping so many communities \u2026 being there to deliver aid, humanitarian aid where there\u2019s most needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal government commissioned the former defence force chief, Mark Binskin to provide it with advice on the adequacy of Israel\u2019s investigations and actions following the deaths.<\/p>\n

In the report, which was published in August last year<\/a>, Binskin wrote there had been \u201ca significant breakdown in situational awareness\u201d by the Israeli forces before the drone strikes.<\/p>\n

But Binskin said he did not believe the strikes were \u201cknowingly or deliberately directed against\u201d the World Central Kitchen convoy, instead saying IDF controls failed, \u201cleading to errors in decision making and a misidentification, likely compounded by a level of confirmation bias\u201d.<\/p>\n

After a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday, Israel\u2019s ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman, defended the Israeli government\u2019s actions and said Binskin delivered a report that found \u201cthe attack was not intentional\u201d.<\/p>\n

Newman said he was not aware the investigation had been shelved and promised to seek an update.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as I know, they have not come to final conclusions not because they\u2019re delaying \u2026 there are legal cases in Israel that go on for years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Newman claimed Binskin\u2019s \u201cfull access\u201d was \u201cunprecedented\u201d despite Binskin\u2019s report noting<\/a> he was never able to review the drone footage\u2019s audio.<\/p>\n

The ambassador would not commit Israel to releasing the drone footage audio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not in my hands. It\u2019s in the IDF\u2019s hands,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s top diplomat in Australia said every innocent person killed in war is a tragedy but claimed figures indicating the number of working journalists killed in Gaza exceeded 200 were exaggerated, disinformation or \u201cbashing Israel\u201d, claiming \u201cHamas and Hezbollah guise themselves as press and remain terrorist operatives\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people outside quote 250, 300 journalists [have been killed], what they\u2019re doing is they\u2019re just buying [it] hook, line and sinker.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they would check, they would find that the majority of all the journalists, so-called journalists, that were affected were actually activists guised as journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a press freedom advocacy group, has criticised Israel\u2019s previous accusations<\/a> that many of the journalists killed in Israeli strikes have been engaged in terrorist activity.<\/p>\n

The CPJ\u2019s program director, Carlos Martinez de la Serna, has previously described it as \u201csmear campaigns\u201d without \u201ccredible evidence to substantiate their claims\u201d.<\/p>\n

Estimates on the number of journalists killed by Israel during the war in Gaza vary but the CPJ found Israeli fire killed 86 journalists in 2025<\/a> with the majority of them Palestinians reporting from Gaza.<\/p>\n

The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Israeli forces killed at least 29 Palestinian journalists<\/a> in Gaza between December 2024 and December 2025 and that nearly 220 journalists had been killed<\/a> since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of aid worker Zomi Frankcom has urged the Albanese government to press Israel for a serious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-576057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}