Larzaumi-Francome's text message was short and sweet. At 10:38 p.m. Sunday, he responded with a heart emoji to his friend Josh Phelps, who had sent him a photo of them doing humanitarian work together on a reservation in South Dakota.
Australian Francome, known as Zomi, was preparing for her big day on Monday. She and her colleagues at the World Central Kitchen in Gaza were waiting for a ship to arrive at a newly constructed pier to unload hundreds of tons of desperately needed humanitarian aid.
The team left Rafah in southern Gaza around 8 a.m. local time on Monday, heading north to Deir al-Balah. Shadi Abu Taha, whose brother Saif was among them, said they were “very excited, as if they were going to a wedding.”
However, the trip ended in disaster.
That night, an Israeli airstrike hit their convoy, killing Francome and six of her colleagues at World Central Kitchen. World Central Kitchen is a charity founded by chef Jose Andrés, who has served millions of meals in Gaza.
Many countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, where some of the workers are from, have condemned the attack and called for an investigation and accountability.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has almost unequivocally rejected international criticism of Israel's war efforts against Hamas, said on Tuesday night that Israel “deeply regrets the tragic incident.”
The Israeli military said the attack was the result of a “misidentification” but did not provide further details. Lieutenant General Helj Halevi, Israel's army chief of staff, said: “This was a mistake that followed a misidentification at night during a war under very complex circumstances.” said in the video on tuesday. “That shouldn't have happened.”
The number of aid workers killed during the war in Gaza has reached at least 196, including more than 175 UN staff, many of them local Palestinians, according to UN Secretary-General António Guterres. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the death toll was “unconscionable”. ”
The deadly Israeli attack has also set back attempts to address the Gaza Strip's hunger crisis, with aid groups saying they are now more cautious about delivering supplies and suspending at least two operations. . World Central Kitchen itself has suspended operations in Gaza and sent three ships carrying hundreds of tons of food back to a port in Cyprus.
The World Central Kitchen ship Jennifer arrived in Gaza on Monday morning. The ship was carrying around 332 tons of aid and was scheduled to be unloaded at a rudimentary pier built in six days using the rubble of bombed buildings.
Workers spent the day removing 100 tons of supplies from the ship and transporting them to a warehouse in Deir al-Balah, a few miles south. They also met with Sigrid Kaag, the UN's senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza.
The remaining unloading will have to wait until the next day. The team will return to Rafah, a move that typically requires coordination with the Israeli military.
At some point that night, World Central Kitchen employees began to pile into cars.Their convoy (two armored vehicles and a third vehicle) left the warehouse Then you will be on the road along the coast. The charity said the Israeli military had been informed of the aid workers' movement. They were heading south to a residence in Rafah, but were unable to reach far.
The first reports of strikes in the area began to arrive on the Palestinian channel on the social media app Telegram around 10:30 p.m.
That's when the humanitarian organization Palestine Red Crescent received a call about an attack on a vehicle on the Al Rashid coastal road. Mahmoud Tabet, who responded to the call, said the group's medics contacted the Israeli military to coordinate their actions.
He said once permission was obtained, he drove to the scene and found three destroyed vehicles along with the victims' bodies.
“I had no idea who the victim was,” Thabet said in an interview. “I was shocked to see foreigners.”
Information began to flow that foreign workers had been murdered. Photos of bloody passports of British, Australian and Polish nationals have since been circulated on social media, along with images of mangled bodies.
Saif's other brother, Abdelraziq Abu Taha, said he heard from World Central Kitchen workers that there was a strike near Deir al-Balah. Abu Taha was extremely worried and called his brother many times, but there was no answer.
There was no immediate official word from World Central Kitchen or the Israeli military about what happened. Additionally, more graphic images began circulating on social media, including a body being pulled from an ambulance and lying on the ground at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Footage showed people taking photos and videos and jostling to get closer as passports were opened and placed on top of the two bodies, both wearing bulletproof vests.
Shortly after 1 a.m., World Central Kitchen issued a short statement saying it was aware of reports that a member of its team had been killed in an Israeli attack while supporting humanitarian food delivery operations in the Gaza Strip. Ta.
The Israeli military responded shortly after, saying at 1:34 a.m. that it was “conducting a thorough investigation at the highest level to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.”
The first confirmation that the World Central Kitchen employee had been killed came 14 minutes later. post From Andres on social media. He mourned “some of our sisters and brothers” who died in Israeli attacks.
Messages of condolences, condolences and anger poured in.
Abdelraziq Abu Taha kept calling his brother over and over again until finally someone answered.
“The owner of this phone is at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital,” he recalled hearing a stranger's voice on the phone. The hospital received five bodies, the stranger added.
It wasn't until 7:07 a.m. that the scale of the tragedy became clear. In a new statement, World Central Kitchen said seven workers were killed and placed the blame squarely on what the Israeli military called a “targeted attack.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said medical workers initially found five bodies at the scene. Two more people were later found after an hour of efforts and taken to Al-Aqsa Hospital, the group announced Tuesday morning.
Photos and videos of the aftermath that morning raised further questions about what happened on the coastal road. Three white trucks were destroyed in various states, one with the front burnt down to its metal frame.
Burnt paper with the World Central Kitchen emblem on it was scattered inside cars and on the road. Another vehicle had a hole about 2 feet in diameter in the passenger side roof, but the windshield and side windows were largely intact. The third vehicle had its doors, windows and roof blown off, and the interior was covered in blood.
Video and photos reviewed by The New York Times suggest the convoy was attacked several times. Images show three destroyed white vehicles, with the northernmost and southernmost vehicles more than a mile and a half apart.
Weapons experts told the Times that each vehicle received small, precision munitions, likely fired from drones. Security expert and British Army veteran Chris Cobb-Smith said in a text message that the damage pattern suggested the ammunition was “very accurate” and had a “catastrophic but limited explosion.” He said there was.
Justin Bronk, a senior researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London, examined videos showing damaged vehicles. “It appears that a small, highly accurate missile hit,” he said in his email.
“Words cannot describe the shock I felt when I saw those photos,” Abdelraziq Abu Taha said. “I still can't believe anyone, my father or my mother. He was under international protection. Just two hours ago, he was next to the Israelis on the pier.”
Report contributor: Adam Rathgon, kim severson, Gaya gupta, Matina Stevis-Gridnev, michael levenson and Anushka Patil.
