unsaveSave
expand-left
full screen One of the World Central Kitchen vehicles hit by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah on Tuesday. Photo: Ismael Abu Dayyah / AP
They were killed while delivering food to hungry Gazans.
The Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers has sparked an outcry.
US President Joe Biden is now calling for an immediate ceasefire.
Seven employees of the aid organization World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza on Monday.
Israel has confirmed the attack and stated that it was all a mistake, which is now being investigated.
– It was a mistake that followed a wrong identification, at night, during a war, under very complex conditions. It should not have happened, Herzi Halevi, head of the Israeli military, said yesterday.
expand-left
full screen People inspect the site where seven aid workers from the aid organization World Central Kitchen were killed in the central Gaza Strip. Photo: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP/TT
WCK founder Jose Andres has said the attack was deliberate and “happened systematically”.
Regardless of who is right, the incident has sparked an outcry.
Harsh criticism of Israel
US President Joe Biden expressed on Tuesday that he was “furious and devastated”.
– This is one of the main reasons why the distribution of emergency humanitarian aid in Gaza has been so difficult – Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver aid that civilians so desperately need.
During the evening, Biden addressed the attack directly with Netanyahu in a telephone conversation, the White House announced.
expand-left
full screenJoe Biden during a speech in Washington yesterday. Photo: Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Biden clarified that Israel needs to take “concrete steps” to address the protection of civilians from the safety of aid workers.
He is said to have said that US support for Israel in the conflict depends on it, demanded an immediate ceasefire and called the humanitarian situation in Gaza unacceptable.
Requires investigation: “Disgusting”
The seven aid workers were citizens of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Poland and Palestine. Leaders of several of those countries have also spoken out.
expand-left
full screen Killed: In the top row, Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, Lalzawmi Frankcom from Australia, Damian Soból from Poland and Jacob Flickinger from the USA/Canada. Bottom row John Chapman from Great Britain, James Henderson from Great Britain and James Kirby from Great Britain. Photo: World Central Kitchen Via AP
Polish President Andrzej Duda signed the X after the attack: “This tragedy should never have happened and must be explained.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly has also called for a full investigation.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a phone call with Netanyahu on Tuesday that he was “disgusted” by the incident, and he too called for an independent investigation.
expand-left
full screen One of the dead after the attack, wearing a t-shirt with the World Central Kitchen logo, at Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Photo: Abdel Kareem Hana / AP
“Traveled to help others”
The leader of the WCK team in Gaza was Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, 43, a citizen of Australia.
– This was a person who helped in Australia during the wildfires. “This was a person who was working overseas to provide aid through this organization to people who are suffering tremendous hardship in Gaza,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said of Zomi.
According to the family, she was a “kind, selfless and outstanding person who traveled all over the world to help others in need”. In a statement to Channel 9, they said: “She died doing the work she loved.”
25-year-old dead
The youngest in the group was Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, 25, who worked as a driver for WCK.
He was originally from Rafah in southern Gaza. It was also where he was buried, writes the BBC.
Hundreds of people attended. Friends, colleagues and relatives took turns carrying the body to its final resting place.
“He was so happy to work with an organization that provides emergency humanitarian aid to internally displaced people, our hearts are broken by his death,” close friend Hassan told the BBC.
expand-left
full screen Aid workers from the World Central Kitchen with the body of one of their slain colleagues at a mortuary in Rafah. Photo: Fatima Shbair/AP
200 aid workers killed
Several aid organizations have raised the alarm that their work is being hindered by the Israeli military. So far, over 200 aid workers have been killed during the nearly six-month war.
– Israel has now killed more aid workers in Gaza than all other armies, militias and terrorists in all other wars combined, Jan Egeland, who heads the Norwegian Refugee Council, told news agency AFP yesterday.
– I sincerely hope that this terrible attack will act as a kind of watershed and lead to a change.
FACT Background
On October 7 last year, the terrorist organization Hamas attacked Israel in what is being called the worst massacre of Jews in modern times.
Thousands of people took part in the terrorist attack, which Hamas calls “Operation Al-Aqsa tidal wave”. Rocket attacks were directed at cities and Israeli villages were invaded and burned.
Over 1,100 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were killed. 240 people were kidnapped and taken as hostages to Gaza. Over 130 of them are still believed to be with Hamas in Gaza.
Shortly thereafter, Israel launched a military invasion of the Gaza Strip with the goal of eradicating Hamas and repatriating the hostages. The battles have been very bloody.
By Palestinians it is called a new Nakba, catastrophe, just like the expulsion of Palestinians that took place in 1948 when the state of Israel was established.
The Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza says that over 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, the majority of them women and children, and that over 74,000 people have been injured.
The UN has warned that Gaza’s residents are at risk of starvation as a result of the war.
Read more