WASHINGTON– Mourners gathered at the Washington National Cathedral on Thursday to honor the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza this month.
José Andrés, the celebrity chef and philanthropist behind the Washington-based disaster relief group World Central Kitchen, is expected to speak at the celebration of life service and cellist Yo-Yo Ma will perform, reports said. organizers.
Douglas Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, and Kurt Campbell, deputy secretary of state, were among those attending the event. Diplomats from more than 30 countries attended, as well as officials from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, one of the most active lawmakers pushing President Joe Biden to condition military aid on better Israeli treatment of aid workers and Palestinian civilians, joined mourners as that a lone piper was playing.
The aid workers were killed on April 1 when Israeli armed drone strikes destroyed their convoy vehicles as they left one of World Central Kitchen’s warehouses on a food delivery mission. Those who died were Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha; the British John Chapman, James Kirby and James Henderson; Jacob Flickinger, dual American and Canadian citizen; the Australian Lalzawmi Frankcom; and Polish citizen Damiam Sobol.
After an unusually rapid investigation, Israel said military officials involved in the attack had violated policy by acting on a single grainy photo that one officer said – incorrectly – showed that one of seven workers were armed. The Israeli army fired two officers and reprimanded three others.
The aid workers, whose trip was coordinated with Israeli officials, are among more than 220 aid workers killed in the war between Israel and Hamas that began on October 7, according to the United Nations. This includes at least 30 deaths in the line of duty.
The international prominence and popularity of Andres and his nonprofit work sparked widespread outrage over the killings of the group’s workers. The deaths have intensified demands from the administration and others for the Israeli military to change the way it operates in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to spare aid workers and Palestinian civilians in general, who are facing a humanitarian crisis and desperately need help from aid organizations as the UN warns of an imminent threat. famine.
World Central Kitchen, along with several other aid agencies, suspended their work in the territory following the attack. “We haven’t given up,” World Central Kitchen spokeswoman Linda Roth said last week. “We’re in funeral mode right now.”
Religious leaders from various faiths are expected to participate in Thursday’s church services. Funerals were held earlier in the workers’ home countries.
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Associated Press writer Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to reflect that Kurt Campbell is the deputy secretary of state, not the deputy assistant secretary of state.
ABC News
