“This is unforgivable”: at least seven workers die in Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip

Cars were hit as they left a warehouse in Deir al-Balah, after unloading more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza by sea from Cyprus.

The non-governmental organization (NGO) World Central Kitchen said the deaths of seven international aid workers in an apparent Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip “is a tragedy”.

“We understand that members of the World Central Kitchen team were killed in an attack by the Israel Defense Forces while working to support our humanitarian food delivery efforts in Gaza,” the NGO’s spokeswoman said on Monday night. .

“Humanitarian workers and civilians should never be a target”, highlighted Linda Roth, in a statement released on the social network X (formerly Twitter) by the organization.

Among the victims are Australian, British and Polish citizens who worked for Spanish chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen. According to Reuters, which cites a statement from the NGO, the workers, including Palestinians and a citizen with dual nationality from the United States and Canada, were traveling in two armored cars with the WCK logo and in another vehicle.

The cars were hit as they left a warehouse in Deir al-Balah, after having unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza by sea from Cyprus.

“This isn’t just an attack on WCK, it’s an attack on the humanitarian organizations that find themselves in the most dire situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is inexcusable,” said Erin Gore, chief executive of World Central Kitchen.

Andres, who founded WCK in 2010 when he sent cooks and food to Haiti after an earthquake, wrote on social media that he was heartbroken and mourning the families and friends of those who died. “The Israeli government must end this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon. No more innocent lives lost. Peace begins with our humanity shared. And it has to start now”, he wrote.

In a statement, the Islamist group Hamas declared that the attack was aimed at terrorizing workers at international humanitarian agencies, dissuading them from their missions.

Army opens investigation

The Israeli army announced an investigation into the deaths of the international workers. “Following reports of the incident involving employees of the World Central Kitchen organization in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces began an in-depth investigation (…) to understand all the circumstances,” he said, in a message on the social network X (formerly Twitter) .

The Israeli army assured that it has made “great efforts” to allow access and safe passage of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, working “in full cooperation and coordination” with the World Central Kitchen “to support efforts to provide food and humanitarian aid to residents of the Gaza Strip”.

The United States said it was “deeply concerned” about the attack and called on Israel to quickly investigate what happened.

White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said on social media site X that “humanitarian workers must be protected as they deliver desperately needed aid.”

The Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, confirmed this morning that one of the dead, Zomi Frankcom, was an Australian citizen and assured that the country will “seek to ascertain who is responsible” for the attack.

Albanese told journalists that Canberra has already contacted the Tel Aviv Government and the Israeli ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, directly to clarify a “completely unacceptable” event.

“This is a human tragedy that should never have occurred, it is completely unacceptable and Australia will seek full and appropriate accountability,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Following the attack, WCK – which last month revealed it had served more than 42 million meals in Gaza over 175 days – decided to immediately halt operations in the region.

The war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, ongoing for almost six months, has displaced most of Gaza’s population and put a third of the enclave’s inhabitants on the brink of starvation.