Israeli air strikes killed six international aid workers and a Palestinian driver.
The US-based aid organization World Central Kitchen (WCK) confirmed on Tuesday that a staff member had been killed in a “targeted attack” by the Israeli military. The dead were from Palestine, Australia, Poland and the United Kingdom, as well as American and Canadian nationals.
WCK said the attack occurred as its staff were delivering food to Gaza from the latest shipment. In Gaza, Israeli attacks have pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the brink of starvation.
Footage showed the bodies of those killed at a hospital in the central city of Deir El Bala. Some of them were wearing protective gear emblazoned with the charity's logo.
WCK announced that it will cease operations in the region effective immediately. The airstrike was a major setback for efforts to transport aid by sea, developed in response to Israeli restrictions on access to Gaza, where experts say famine is imminent.
“The WCK team was traveling through the conflict zone in two armored vehicles and a soft skin vehicle bearing the WCK logo,” the charity said in a statement.
“Despite coordinating movements with the government, [Israeli army]The convoy was struck as it was leaving a warehouse in Deir al-Balah, where the team was offloading more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid that it had brought to Gaza by sea route. ”
Erin Gore, the charity's CEO, said: “This is not only an attack on WCK, but also on humanitarian organizations in the most dire situations where food is used as a weapon of war.” said. This is unacceptable. ”
The aid worker's body was taken to a hospital in the southern city of Rafah on the Egyptian border. The bodies of the foreigners will be evacuated from Gaza, and the bodies of the Palestinian drivers will be handed over to their families in Rafah for burial.
