Australians will gather this morning outside the Israeli Embassy in Canberra to demand an independent investigation into the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, two years after she was killed by Israeli forces while delivering food to starving people in Gaza.
The rally was called following the IDF’s decision last week to clear its own soldiers of criminal wrongdoing, closing its investigation without a criminal process. The decision came despite the commander who ordered the strike, Colonel Nochi Mendel, acknowledging in an October 2025 interview that he had been watching a live drone feed as the convoy moved and stating, ‘I’m not sorry for what I did.’
Rally organisers have noted that three World Central Kitchen vehicles, clearly marked, were hit in three separate strikes over four minutes. Survivors escaped the first vehicle and moved to the second at which point Israel struck them again and again.
This occurred despite the convoy’s movements having been coordinated in advance with the Israeli military. Seven aid workers were killed in the attack.
Outrage
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has stated she has ‘no confidence’ in the IDF’s findings.
Prime Minister Albanese has called the outcome ‘an outrage’, and yet the government’s response has been to ask Israel to investigate itself again.
Speakers at this morning’s rally will include Gaza flotilla survivors who were themselves tortured and sexually assaulted in Israeli custody across multiple missions in 2025 and 2026, and who know firsthand what Israeli self-investigation produces. With multiple accounts and medical records corroborating their torture, Israel told the world they were treated with ‘great sensitivity’.
In September 2025 Australia launched the Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel in Ms Frankcom’s honour, now supported by 125 countries. That Declaration commits signatories not only to the protection of humanitarian workers but to justice and accountability when they are harmed.
Rally organisers say Zomi Frankcom’s death is now testing whether the Declaration actually means anything.
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