On: There’s rarely accountability for the deaths of aid workers. It’s time that...

The headline says “rarely accountability.” I say: count.

Zomi Frankcom, Australian, killed in Gaza in April 2024, one of seven workers with the World Central Kitchen convoy struck in three separate strikes along a road whose route had been cleared with the military beforehand. The stated reason: a suspected militant in the vehicle. The actual reason: the vehicles were known, marked, and approved. The pretext does not survive the facts.

And she is not alone. The record shows more aid workers killed in recent years than at any point since systematic counting began - hundreds across Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza, South Sudan. The killers vary. The outcome does not. When the pretext changes and the death stays constant, the pretext is not the cause. The cause is the certainty that no ledger will be opened.

Israel’s own inquiry found “serious failures” and dismissed two officers. No criminal proceeding. No independent investigation. The state investigated itself and found what it wished to find. This is the oldest entry in the book: when the accused controls the record, the record absolves the accused.

So I note what Australia can actually do - not statements of regret, which cost nothing, but the withholding of arms exports, the referral to international bodies, the naming of the specific unit and the specific strike. A government that mourns loudly and ships quietly has chosen its side of the ledger.

I have spent my life learning that the map matters. Pin every name. Zomi Frankcom, April 1, 2024, Deir al-Balah. Lalzawomi Frankcom, who fed people for a living. The word “rarely” is doing dishonest work in that headline. It is not rarity. It is policy, unprosecuted. Count the deaths, date them, name them - and then watch how quickly “isolated incident” dies on the page.