Israeli commander defends ordering strike that killed Zomi Frankcom

An Israeli commander who ordered a deadly drone strike on an aid convoy in Gaza, killing Australian woman Zomi Frankcom, says he still stands by his decision to launch the attack and did not intend to harm aid workers.

This interview was conducted in October 2025, before last week's decision by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) not to prosecute those involved in the strike.

Zomi Frankcom, 43, was working for World Central Kitchen (WCK) when she was killed in April 2024, along with six of her colleagues.

The commander who ordered the attack, Colonel Nochi Mendel, was sacked from his role as chief of staff for the Israeli military's Nahal infantry brigade.

The IDF said the attack was a grave mistake, arising from mis-identification of the occupants of the convoy as Hamas members due to the presence of armed security.

However, Colonel Mendel was dismissed because of what the IDF described as a series of failures that occurred that night, including a violation of the IDF's rules of engagement and standard operating procedure.

The interview with Colonel Mendel was conducted with the help of an interpreter, and his responses have been translated.

"I'm the commander, and I'm the one who gave the order to carry out the operation. I didn't run away from the situation. I said I gave the order; don't look for anyone else," he said.

Colonel Mendel said he did not mean to kill any of the WCK employees, but said: "I'm not sorry for what I did."

Last week, the IDF said it would not pursue a criminal investigation or take additional measures against anyone involved in the incident.

That decision was criticised by the Frankcom family, the Albanese government and World Central Kitchen.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that "we still have not had a satisfactory explanation of why the strike occurred in a humanitarian fire control zone, and after High Command had directed the brigade commander not to engage the convoy."

The ABC's Unravel podcast is working on an investigation into the incident, which will be released later this year.

'We didn't intend to kill anyone from the WCK'

In the interview, Colonel Mendel said that he did not have any intention of harming the WCK aid workers when he ordered the attack.

But he claimed he was compelled to act by developments on the ground, for which he primarily blames a complex operational environment in Gaza, and errors made by WCK.

Colonel Mendel blamed what he viewed as "an intermingling between the WCK and Hamas operatives" that occurred on the evening.

"Of course we didn't intend to kill anyone from the WCK; their connection with Hamas was a deviation from the plan," he said.

He says later, after the incident, he became aware of what he claims were links between WCK and Hamas.

"So the WCK, too — unfortunately, they aren't really a neutral organisation. Not really an organisation you can say is innocent and completely clean.

"It had ties to Hamas."

In the interview, Colonel Mendel pointed to reports that WCK let go of some staff members in December 2024, after they were accused by Israel of links to Hamas.

However, he said he was not aware of this at the time of the strike, and those claims have been refuted by WCK, which stated at the time that because Israel does not share its intelligence, the dismissals "should not be taken as a conclusion by WCK that the individuals are affiliated with any terror organisation."

In response to Colonel Mendel's public comments, WCK said it rejected the allegations, calling them "false and outrageous."

"This is the latest attempt to shift blame away from the IDF's own actions," a spokesperson told the ABC.

"The individual making these slanderous claims has no credibility.

"He was directly involved in the decisions that led to the April 1 strikes and was immediately removed from his post for serious failures and breaches of standard operating procedure.

"We demand truth and justice for our seven colleagues who were killed, through a full, independent investigation into the attack."

In his words: the night of the strike

For the first time, Colonel Mendel has publicly detailed the sequence of events leading up to the strike, from his perspective.

Stationed at a control centre within the Sde Teiman defence facility in southern Israel, Colonel Mendel said he was watching a live feed from an Israeli drone hovering above the convoy travelling through central Gaza towards a warehouse in Deir al Balah.

The drone was being controlled by the Israeli air force from a separate base closer to Tel Aviv, known as Palmachim.

Colonel Mendel said he had oversight of the drone feed, and open communications with the pilots in Palmachim.

"I can see [a] continuous video feed. I can see the trucks moving," he said.

Colonel Mendel said he saw several armed men, which he described as "terrorists", climbing onto the trucks that were being escorted by WCK cars in convoy.

"We can clearly see armed terrorists getting out and firing from the trucks."

Soon after, the convoy arrived at a warehouse to unload the aid. Colonel Mendel claimed that the live drone footage he was observing showed the armed men and the aid workers intermingling.

"We see them all mixed together — both the WCK guys and the Hamas terrorists with weapons," he said.

"We can see them right next to each other, and they're not trying to distance themselves from one another."

Colonel Mendel said that he decided not to attack the gunmen at this stage, despite asserting that he would have been justified to do so.

"There was a good enough reason for me to kill them, but because they were with the WCK, we didn't attack them at that stage," he said.

"I saw terrorists clearly; I didn't kill them so as not to harm the WCK."

However, a 2024 Australian investigation by Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin found that during this time, Colonel Mendel and an IDF brigade fire support commander classified several gunmen who were moving around the escort vehicles at the warehouse as Hamas and sought permission to engage the escort vehicles outside the warehouse.

Colonel Mendel's request to engage was denied by higher command due to the vehicles being deemed too close to the humanitarian aid convoy.

In his interview, Colonel Mendel said the military made contact with WCK to ask them about the presence of the gunmen.

According to Colonel Mendel, a WCK representative in Europe advised that there were not meant to be armed guards present in the convoy.

"They tell us there aren't supposed to be armed guards," he said.

After the aid was unloaded, the trucks stayed at the warehouse, while the WCK vehicles departed.

Colonel Mendel claimed that at this stage, World Central Kitchen deviated from the prearranged route they had coordinated with the IDF, which he said was meant to head to accommodation north of the warehouse.

Instead, the convoy separated, with some vehicles heading south towards Rafah.

However, according to the Binskin investigation, the decision to strike had already been finalised before the convoy made that turn, suggesting it could not have contributed to the decision.

Colonel Mendel further claimed that he identified an armed man entering one of the vehicles and insisted that the presence of a gunman in the vehicles heading south was confirmed to him by "professionals" at Palmachim air base, from where the drone was being operated.

"They definitely confirm that they identified an armed terrorist in the vehicle," he said.

Colonel Mendel revealed that was when he made the call to strike.

"I attacked the vehicle where an armed terrorist boarded with the weapon, and it's southbound."

In its initial response to the incident, published on their website shortly after the attack, the IDF stated that this was a "mis-identification."

And in briefings with journalists in the days following the attack, the military stated that the weapon seen as someone was entering a vehicle, was actually a bag.

Authorising the attack

The attack consisted of three separate strikes on three different vehicles over four minutes.

According to the Binskin report, these strikes were authorised despite an order from the division commander that "no more strikes around humanitarian convoys were to occur that night."

However, the report noted that "it was not stated how this direction was given and whether it was deemed a formal order," and the brigade staff had assessed that after the vehicles left the warehouse the "situation had now changed and they had now become targetable".

When asked by the ABC whether he had successfully killed any terrorists in the strike, Colonel Mendel was inconclusive.

"Maybe one, or maybe none were killed," he said.

While Colonel Mendel said he did not intend to harm anyone from the WCK, ultimately, he said he did not regret the decisions he made that night, despite the outcome, and was disappointed by the IDF's decision to dismiss him from his position in the army.

"It's a matter of it being painful because you're fighting a very complex situation," he said.

"We came here to win, to eradicate this evil for the whole world, not just for ourselves."

Referring to his dismissal from the army, he said: "In the end, in a very difficult situation, I'm paying the price."

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is demanding Israel commission an independent investigation into the incident.

The family of Zomi Frankcom has repeatedly criticised the IDF for refusing to provide a copy of the drone audio that could help to resolve conflicting accounts of the evening.