After seven aid workers were killed in an Israeli drone strike in the Gaza Strip, aid workers in Chicago said the “catastrophic” attack was not surprising and added to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. He said it represented a larger problem for aid organizations trying to address.
The seven World Central Kitchen staff killed on April 1 are among more than 220 humanitarian workers killed in the conflict, according to the United Nations.
Israel later fired two police officers and disciplined three others for their involvement in the drone attack that killed aid workers. However, World Central Kitchen is now demanding that aid be allowed to go to Gaza, as well as calling for an independent commission to investigate the IDF.
Alison Pure Slovin, Midwest regional director for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group that openly supports Israel, said the deaths were a result of the Oct. 7 Hamas raid that killed about 1,200 people. He said it was a tragedy born out of the attack. Israeli. Since then, more than 33,175 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.
“This tragedy occurred despite Israel's continued efforts to avoid attacking innocent people during the Hamas war in Gaza,” Pure-Slovin said in a statement. “[To] To end the tragedy of war, Hamas must lay down its weapons and release the Israeli hostages. ”
Israel's Consul General to the Midwest, Inam Cohen, said in a statement that the drone strike was a “grave mistake” and that Israel is grateful to World Central Kitchen for its “important humanitarian work helping residents of the Gaza Strip.” He said he did. ”
“We believe that the critical humanitarian work of international aid agencies is of paramount importance, and we coordinate and support their work while ensuring the safety of their personnel, with full respect for the values of the IDF and the law. “We will continue to work hard to make sure that the war is true,” he added.
Dr. Sair Ahmad, director of the Rolling Meadows-based nonprofit MedGlobal and an emergency physician in Chicago, said the attack was devastating but not surprising. He said the latest attacks on aid workers were linked to the same problems experienced previously with “deconflict”, or the sharing of coordinates and other details by aid workers with governments to avoid injury or death during conflicts. He said that it arose from.
“Coordinates should be shared, movement should be allowed and there should be safe passage for those providing aid and medical care,” Ahmad said. “What we have seen in the last six months is that the Israeli military is not thorough in how deconfliction is supposed to work.”
He said World Central Kitchen had the best communication among aid organizations and was contributing to the survival of northern Gaza thanks to its access to the Gaza Strip. It has since ceased operations there.
Mouaiad Kitaneh, a Chicago-area physician and co-founder of the Palestinian American Physicians Association, stands in the nonprofit's medical supply warehouse in Orland Park.
Ahmad and his colleagues in Gaza were also on the brink. In January, a missile attack approached the hospital where he worked, forcing him to evacuate. Earlier that month, a missile struck a deconflict medical facility in central Gaza, injuring aid workers working with MedGlobal employees.
Ahmad, who walked out of a White House meeting last week to protest the Biden administration's handling of the conflict, said the attack had not deterred him from returning, but it had created a “chilling effect” that would heighten the pressure. . About MedGlobal and other groups active in the region.
“The impact will go far beyond this incident,” Ahmad said. “People will become afraid to deliver aid, and in the end it will be the Palestinians who will suffer.”
The effects are already being seen in the aid community, said Muayad Kittaneh, another Chicago physician and co-founder of the Palestinian American Medical Association, a nonprofit humanitarian organization that has been working in Gaza since 2013. It is said that
The group had recently been working on a mobile clinic project in conjunction with other aid groups, but Kittane said some groups withdrew after seven aid workers were killed. One of the reasons is that “travel involves danger.''
“We have joint projects with other organizations that we had to put on hold until the situation is a little safer or there is a ceasefire,” Kitane said. “If it was safer to send more doctors, we would definitely send more doctors.”
In addition, the group has built a warehouse in Orland Park with enough medical supplies to fill two 40-foot shipping containers, Kitane said.
A medical supplies warehouse owned by the Palestinian American Physicians Association in Orland Park.
They were able to get one from Kansas to Gaza via Jordan, but the logistics of getting the container there were then more complicated, requiring a team of doctors to bring the supplies in suitcases. he said.
Despite problems getting aid, Ahmad and his MedGlobal team will return to Gaza later this month to provide care at Al-Aqsa Hospital and treat malnourished people in need of special treatment. I am planning to launch a nutrition clinic that will do the same.
After last week's strikes, President Biden asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whether future U.S. aid to Israel's war in Gaza would quickly implement new measures to protect civilians and aid workers. He issued a stern warning that he was suffering from the disease. Early last month, the U.S. military began dropping pallets of food over the airfield.
Mr Ahmad said it was necessary to have personnel on site to treat patients, and providing assistance was not enough. A ceasefire was ultimately the only way to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“There is a much bigger gap to fill,” Ahmad said. “It can’t just be an airdrop.”
Contribution: Associated Press
