Zomi Frankcom’s brother demands audio of deadly Israeli strike but ambassador says ‘it’s in the IDF’s hands’
On second anniversary of aid worker’s killing in Gaza, her family renews calls for an open and transparent investigation
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The family of aid worker Zomi Frankcom 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.
Wednesday will be the second anniversary of strikes on the World Central Kitchen aid worker’s convoy which killed the 43-year-old Australian and six of her colleagues.
Israel’s defence force conducted an investigation into the deaths, which resulted in two officers being dismissed and three others being reprimanded.
In February, Albanese raised the case with Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, during his visit to Australia.
On Tuesday, he called Frankcom’s death “a tragic loss”.
“We’ll continue to work each and every day to do our best to ensure that there is transparency and appropriate action.”
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailBut Frankcom’s brother, Mal Frankcom, said serious outstanding questions remained, including possible consequences for other Israel Defense Forces personnel involved.
“What happened on 1 April 2024 absolutely devastated my family and many people in the community,” Frankcom said during a visit to federal parliament.
He said the convoy had been struck three times, “resulting in seven heroic aid workers being left to die on the side of the road”.
“We have been told that the case is still under review, while many other high-profile cases have since been closed.
“We hope that our pursuit of justice and accountability will not be in vain, and that an open and transparent investigation.”
Frankcom was due to meet the prime minister, Anthony Albanese and other federal MPs on Tuesday.
Frankcom called for the audio of drone footage to be released, even if translation from Hebrew was required. Frankcom said the victims’ families had never received proper explanation for the deaths, personal apologies from the Israeli government or compensation.
Independent MP Zali Steggall said Frankcom represented the best of Australia during her life.
“Zomi Frankcom embodied all that is good about Australian values and selflessly worked helping so many communities … being there to deliver aid, humanitarian aid where there’s most needed.”
The federal government commissioned the former defence force chief, Mark Binskin to provide it with advice on the adequacy of Israel’s investigations and actions following the deaths.
In the report, which was published in August last year, Binskin wrote there had been “a significant breakdown in situational awareness” by the Israeli forces before the drone strikes.
But Binskin said he did not believe the strikes were “knowingly or deliberately directed against” the World Central Kitchen convoy, instead saying IDF controls failed, “leading to errors in decision making and a misidentification, likely compounded by a level of confirmation bias”.
After a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman, defended the Israeli government’s actions and said Binskin delivered a report that found “the attack was not intentional”.
Newman said he was not aware the investigation had been shelved and promised to seek an update.
“As far as I know, they have not come to final conclusions not because they’re delaying … there are legal cases in Israel that go on for years,” he said.
Newman claimed Binskin’s “full access” was “unprecedented” despite Binskin’s report noting he was never able to review the drone footage’s audio.
The ambassador would not commit Israel to releasing the drone footage audio.
“That’s not in my hands. It’s in the IDF’s hands,” he said.
Israel’s 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 “bashing Israel”, claiming “Hamas and Hezbollah guise themselves as press and remain terrorist operatives”.
“When people outside quote 250, 300 journalists [have been killed], what they’re doing is they’re just buying [it] hook, line and sinker.
“If 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.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a press freedom advocacy group, has criticised Israel’s previous accusations that many of the journalists killed in Israeli strikes have been engaged in terrorist activity.
The CPJ’s program director, Carlos Martinez de la Serna, has previously described it as “smear campaigns” without “credible evidence to substantiate their claims”.
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 with the majority of them Palestinians reporting from Gaza.
The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Israeli forces killed at least 29 Palestinian journalists in Gaza between December 2024 and December 2025 and that nearly 220 journalists had been killed since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

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