"We will be opening a probe to examine this serious incident further. This will help us reduce the risk of such an event from occurring again," military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a video statement.

He said he had expressed the military's "deepest condolences" to celebrity chef Jose Andres, the founder of the US-based World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid group that the victims were working for.

Hagari said the probe would be carried out by the Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism.

WCK said it was pausing operations after the "targeted Israeli strike" on Monday. It said those killed were "from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom, a dual citizen of the US and Canada, and Palestine".

"We will get to the bottom of this and we will share our findings transparently," Hagari added.

WCK was one of the first NGOs who "came to help Israelis after the massacre of October 7", Hagari said, adding that the army had been working closely with them in "their noble mission of helping bring food and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza".

Since Hamas's October 7 attack, Gaza has been under a near-complete blockade, with the United Nations accusing Israel of preventing deliveries of humanitarian assistance to the 2.4 million Palestinians inside the besieged territory.

UN agencies have warned repeatedly that northern Gaza is on the verge of famine, calling the situation a man-made crisis.

The bloodiest-ever Gaza war erupted with the October 7 attack, which resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign, aimed at destroying Hamas, has killed at least 32,916 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.