An airstrike killed four international aid workers and their Palestinian driver in Gaza on Monday, officials in the Palestinian territory said.
The aid workers were members of World Central Kitchen, a non-profit organization founded by famous chef José Andrés which, according to the organization, shipped more than 37 million meals for Palestinians in Gaza since October 7. The aid workers were traveling from Deir al-Balah to Rafah when their convoy was hit.
One worker was British, one Polish and one Australian, the spokesperson for the Gaza media office told a news conference. The nationality of the fourth worker was unknown Monday evening.
Graphic photographs showed the mutilated and bloodied corpses of aid workers, some still wearing World Central Kitchen t-shirts, along with their passports.
A Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic who helped transport the bodies to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital told The Associated Press that the workers were in a three-car convoy leaving northern Gaza when an Israeli missile struck.
“Following reports regarding staff at World Central Kitchen in Gaza today, the Israeli military is conducting a thorough investigation at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident,” the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that it was working closely with World Central Kitchen “in their vital efforts to provide food and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.”
Global Central Cuisine via Reuters
World Central Kitchen said it was aware of reports of the attack. “It’s a tragedy” World Central Kitchen wrote on social media. “Aid workers and civilians should NEVER be a target. EVER.”
In a long post on social networksAndrés said his organization had lost several “brothers and sisters in an IDF airstrike in Gaza”, and called on the Israeli government to “stop killing civilians and aid workers, and to stop using food as a weapon.
“I am heartbroken and mourning their families and friends and our entire WCK family,” Andrés wrote. They are people… angels… I served in Ukraine, Gaza, Turkey, Morocco, Bahamas, Indonesia. They are not faceless…they are not nameless. »
The strike took place two days later a convoy of three ships left a port in Cyprus with 400 tonnes of food and other supplies for Gaza amid fears of imminent famine in the territory. The United States has said it hopes the sea route from Cyprus could provide an alternative lifeline to northern Gaza.
Central cuisine of the world said shipments to Gaza were loaded with rice, pasta, flour, legumes, canned vegetables and protein, and contained enough food to prepare more than a million meals. Also on board were dates, traditionally eaten to break the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
The United Nations and its partners have warned that famine could occur very soon in devastated and largely isolated northern Gaza. CBS News previously reported that around 1.7 million people in Gaza have been internally displaced, according to the UN, and many do not have access to food, water, medicine or appropriate shelter .
Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have been killed since Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Israel responded with an air, land and sea offensive that killed nearly 33,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but it says women and children make up about two-thirds of those killed.
—Camilla Schick and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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