Food aid organization World Central Kitchen said Tuesday that an Israeli strike killed seven of its workers in the Gaza Strip.
“World Central Kitchen is devastated to confirm seven members of our team have been killed in an IDF strike in Gaza,” the US-based charity said in a statement.
It stated that those killed were “from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom, a dual citizen of the US and Canada, and Palestine,” later adding that three of them were confirmed to be UK citizens.
The aid organization also announced it was “pausing our operations in the region.”
Since the start of the war in October, World Central Kitchen has been involved in relief efforts, including supplying meals to hunger-stricken Gaza.
It is one of two NGOs spearheading efforts to deliver aid to Gaza by boat from Cyprus and was also involved in the construction of a temporary jetty.
The NGO said its team was traveling in a “deconflicted” area in a convoy of “two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle” at the time of the strike.
“Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza on the maritime route,” it said.
World Central Kitchen “lost several of our sisters and brothers in an IDF air strike in Gaza. I am heartbroken and grieving for their families and friends and our whole WCK family,” the group’s founder, chef Jose Andres, wrote on social media platform X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed on Tuesday that one of the killed aid workers was Australian national Zomi Frankcom.
“This is completely unacceptable. Australia expects full accountability for the deaths of aid workers,” Albanese said.
US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the White House was “heartbroken and deeply troubled by the strike.”
“Humanitarian aid workers must be protected as they deliver aid that is desperately needed, and we urge Israel to swiftly investigate what happened,” she wrote on X.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it was “conducting a thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident,” adding that it had been “working closely with WCK” in the effort to provide aid to Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted Tuesday that its armed forces “unintentionally” killed seven aid workers in an air strike in Gaza.
“Unfortunately, in the last day there was a tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip,” he said as he left hospital in Jerusalem after a hernia operation.
“It happens in war, we will investigate it right to the end… We are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again.”
With AFP
