The Australian government has received a highly anticipated report from former defence force chief Mark Binskin on the killing of Australian humanitarian worker Zomi Frankcom and her colleagues in Israeli military drone strikes in Gaza.
Guardian Australia understands the government has received the report regarding the 1 April incident and is now working with Binskin to “action” his recommendations.
Sources said the government would say more about the findings once it had carried out appropriate engagement with Frankcom’s family.
After the Israeli military’s triple drone strike on the World Central Kitchen aid convoy on 1 April that killed seven people, the Australian government appointed Binskin as a “special adviser” on the incident.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said at the time that Binskin would examine the “sufficiency and appropriateness of the steps taken by the Israeli government” in relation to the killings.
Binskin’s report is understood to canvass what led to the strikes that killed the aid workers and what happened in the aftermath.
Expected to be released publicly within weeks, the report is likely to identify potential lessons for Australia’s military processes and recommendations for global protocols around non-government agencies’ operations in conflict zones that may be applicable beyond Gaza.
Binskin did not have investigative powers and was relying on the cooperation of the Israel Defense Forces. He visited Israel and received high-level assistance along with input from World Central Kitchen and other international organisations and agencies.
The deputy leader of the Greens, Mehreen Faruqi, tweeted earlier on Wednesday in reference to Frankcom that it was now “100 days since her death” and asked why the report had yet to be released.
At a Senate estimates committee hearing in early June, officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed that Binskin had travelled to Israel between 5 and 13 May.
“He has had a good level of access to very senior people within Israel,” a deputy secretary of Dfat, Craig Maclachlan, told the hearing.
“At no point has Mr Binskin said to me that he has felt that he has been short on information or detail.”
Maclachlan told the hearing on 3 June that he anticipated Binskin would “finalise his report in coming weeks and present that to the government”, although he did not give a specific deadline.
Guardian Australia has learned handing over the report has now been completed.
There has been some uncertainty about the level of detail that will be made public, but Wong told Senate estimates she understood “the desire of many in our community for clarity around this”.
She said the need for clarity and transparency would “inform how we approach what we can release”.
