How did Israel's attack on the World Central Kitchen convoy in the Gaza Strip unfold?

None of them tried to return to base.

There were seven people in the car: employees and volunteers of the group, including Palestinians. Aid workers from the US, UK, Poland, Australia and other countries are drawn to the world's worst humanitarian crisis. They were one of the teams forming part of a pop-up maritime supply chain built by WCK, using barges, temporary piers and convoys to source food from Europe and send it to relief points around Gaza. .

WCK said in a statement that the group had just been part of a convoy unloading more than 100 tons of aid at a warehouse in Deir al-Balah. Three cars were returning along Al Rashid Road to a staging area near the Egyptian border.

WCK said the team was coordinating with Israeli military officials and had received permission to travel the route. Israeli Defense Force officials said they had been working closely with WCK for months on the Gaza operation.

However, the route is one of the few humanitarian lanes across Gaza and has been listed as a “high risk area” by the United Nations due to fatal accidents along the way.

WCK personnel were wearing bulletproof vests inside armored vehicles. The group had reportedly complained to the Israeli military a few days earlier that an IDF sniper fired on a WCK vehicle, but did not hit the occupants.

The team was used to dangerous situations. British volunteer James Henderson, 33, was a special forces officer. Australian Lalzaumi “Zomi” Francome, 43, who is listed as WCK’s country manager, has previously delivered food from the back of his motorcycle to earthquake-ravaged roads in Haiti, he said. colleague told The Washington Post. She wrote that Gaza was “intense” even for her.

“I’m getting used to the drones, but the noise still gives me a stomach ache,” she recently texted Josh Phelps, WCK’s former relief operations director.

Some of the workers spoke Monday with Sigrid Kaag, the United Nations Special Coordinator for Humanitarian and Reconstruction Assistance in Gaza, calling for improved delivery of aid and a safer environment for the people they serve. I met him first.

“More than 180 humanitarian aid workers have been killed in Gaza,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a briefing on Tuesday.

Around 9:30pm on Monday, a 29-year-old volunteer medical technician for the Palestine Red Crescent Society, who was working near Al Rashid Street, heard an explosion. A few minutes later, the crew received a call about an airstrike on the vehicle.

The man, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to safety concerns, filmed the scene moments later and provided video of technicians arriving at a white Toyota stalled on the road.

“They are foreigners,” said one technician, looking at the bloody interior of the car.

“Why were they beaten?” asks another.

“I don't know why they were beaten. How can I find out?”

Shortly afterward, crews pulled up the first body with severe injuries, but the man was still wearing a bulletproof vest.

The man said other crews responded to two vehicles that were collided along the same road.

Images of the aftermath reviewed and geolocated by The Post show all vehicles destroyed within 1.5 miles of each other, and some had a chance to continue driving after the attack began. It suggests that.

One vehicle is On the side of the road, facing north. A large portion of the car's hood collapsed, the windows were blown out and the doors were blackened.

The second Toyota was located half a mile south in the middle of the road, with a hole in the roof next to the WCK logo extending almost half the width of the car.

A third vehicle was found another mile away. It was lying on its side along the road, and much of the metal on its body was frayed.

The video showed several bodies mutilated beyond recognition. Others were clearly identified by passport photos open on their vests.Palestinian driver Seif Issam Abu Taha He was still wearing his WCK T-shirt.

Chris Cobb-Smith, a security consultant and former British Army artillery officer, said in a message that the “small, confined explosion” meant the vehicle was a “very accurate, highly penetrating drone-launched missile.” He said it suggested he had been attacked. ”

“It is likely that all three vehicles received the same type of ammunition, as it would be tactically unreasonable to fire different ammunition at different targets during an operation,” Cobbsmith said.

Israel did not provide details of what happened but apologized for the attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu characterized the incidents as “tragic incidents” that were “unintentional.”

The IDF said it had opened an investigation but declined to comment on Israeli media reports that said Israeli forces were targeting militants who may have been accompanying the convoy at some point that day. I refrained.

WCK CEO Erin Gore described the attack as a “targeted attack” on the organization's civilian team.

Cate Brown, Jon Gerberg and Júlia Ledur contributed to this report.