In conversation with Zomi Frankcom's brother

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (0:08)
Hey, it's Sacha Barbour Gatt with you, welcome to this bonus episode of The Briefing. This week, the Israeli military cleared itself of any criminal wrongdoing when it killed seven aid workers in Gaza, including Australian woman Zomi Frankcom. She and her colleagues were killed in April of 2024 when the World Central Kitchen convoy they were travelling in was hit by Israeli drone strikes. The IDF claimed it mistook an armed security guard on board for a Hamas fighter. And a subsequent internal investigation ruled this week there were serious failures that led to that identification. But the IDF says it wasn't enough to suspect any crime had been committed. The finding has drawn outrage from humanitarian groups who say it is deeply offensive. Back in April, we spoke with Zomi's brother Mal about her family's fight for justice. Today, we're bringing you that interview. Here's my chat with Mal Frankcom.
Mal, welcome to The Briefing. Thank you for taking the time to speak to us today.
I'm wondering if you can first take us back to the day you learned Zomi had been killed in an Israeli drone strike. What do you remember from that moment?

**Mal Frankcom** (1:16)
Intense feeling of shock.
I received a call from the Department of Foreign Affairs saying they'd received reports that she'd been involved in an incident and that they're looking into the situation and that her name might be in the media. So they were giving me the heads up on that and they said that they'd get back to me as soon as they could.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (1:42)
So does that mean you heard that she had passed away from the media before DFAT had told you?

**Mal Frankcom** (1:48)
DFAT hadn't confirmed that she'd passed away, just that they were looking into it, but then in the media, there was reports that she was involved in the strike.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (1:59)
So what was that period like then? Because I can imagine it would have been confusion, aside from the initial shock and horror at the news that something had potentially happened to her, you're then trying to piece together whether she had actually been killed in this strike. How did you deal with that time?

**Mal Frankcom** (2:16)
That's a tricky one. I kind of went into autopilot and said to myself, this might be actually real, is this actually happening? But as I said, it was just complete shock. And then my phone started ringing. I had a call from Washington, DC from WCK headquarters, confirming that it had happened and that she had been killed. And at the time I was at work, and I told my boss I needed to go.
So then I came home and on the drive on the way home, my family had already seen in the news.
And so, yeah, it was just really traumatic for the whole family.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (3:03)
You've been incredibly persistent in your pursuit of the truth around what happened to Zomi, but you have described the current situation that you and your family in as a state of limbo. It's two years on since Zomi's killing.
What does it actually feel like for your family to still be in that state of limbo right now?

**Mal Frankcom** (3:23)
It's frustrating. The timelines that we were informed of by the special advisor after he'd returned from Israel and how he explained everything to us about how it's going to work from here on in.
He told us it would be one to two months for the military advocate general to make a decision on whether to refer it for further prosecution. And then if she did, then that would take at least another 12 or more months after that. And so we're still here. Two years later, still waiting.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (3:58)
You spoke in Parliament House last week asking for a more open and thorough investigation into what happened to your sister. What do we still not know about the attack that killed Zomi?

**Mal Frankcom** (4:09)
There's a few different pieces. One of the main ones is the audio from the drone strike, which wasn't made available to the special advisor during his visit there.
I just think that that's a key component of it. To establish the frame of mind and the communications that were involved in the lead up and during the strike, because according to the report, they misidentified a person putting on a bag as a firearm and got into one of the cars, one of the three cars, they drove off and then the first car was struck. But then after that, the second and third car was struck. And from what we know, there was no identified gunman or any kind of threat within those vehicles.