World Central Kitchen is suspending operations in Gaza after a vehicle was hit by an Israeli jet
An Israeli airstrike on a vehicle south of the Gaza Strip on Saturday killed five people, a Palestinian health official said. Three of them were reported to be employees of World Central Kitchen.
The US-based charity said it is suspending operations in the area as it tries to get more information.
Its efforts to deliver aid to the war-torn region were halted last April after an Israeli strike killed seven of its workers, most of them foreigners.
“We are saddened to hear that the car carrying World Central Kitchen colleagues was hit by an Israeli plane in Gaza,” the charity said in a statement released on Saturday.
The Israeli military said it had raided a wanted activist who was involved in a Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which led to the war.
In a recent statement, it said the suspected attacker worked with WCK and asked “senior officials from the international community and WCK management to clarify” how that happened.
The WCK in its statement said that it was not aware that there was anyone in the car that was allegedly related to the October 7 attack.
Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that three World Central Kitchen workers were killed in the Khan Younis strike.
Violence in Gaza continues as the ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah appears to be continuing, despite rare episodes that have tested its weakness. Israel on Saturday attacked what it said were Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites near the Syrian-Lebanon border.
Hezbollah launched an attack on Israel the day after the October 7 attack in support of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. The fighting intensified in September, with heavy Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon and Israeli ground attacks in the south of the country.
A previous strike on a WCK convoy killed 7
The vehicle strike in Gaza was the latest in what aid agencies described as a dangerous aid delivery operation in Gaza, where the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis that has left most of the area's 2.3 million people homeless and caused widespread hunger.
World Central Kitchen provides freshly prepared food to people in need following natural disasters or those enduring conflict. Its groups have sprung up in Gaza and all over Israel and Lebanon since the start of the war and have often helped the people of Gaza who were struggling to feed themselves and their families.
Palestinian health chief Muneer Alboursh confirmed the strike, while the aid worker in Gaza confirmed that the three dead were WCK workers. The aid worker spoke and asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
At Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, a woman held up a worker's badge with the WCK logo, the word “contractor” and the name of a man who was said to have been killed in the strike. A lot of belongings – burnt phones, a watch and stickers with the WCK logo – were placed on the floor of the hospital.
Nazmi Ahmed said that her nephew had been working for WCK for the past year. He said he used to drive to kitchens and warehouses.
“Today, he went out as usual to work … and he was targeted without warning and for no reason,” Ahmed said.
In April, a WCK aid strike killed seven workers – three British citizens, Polish and Australian citizens, two Canadian-Americans and a Palestinian. The Israeli military said the strike was a mistake.
Israel says it has fired two army officers and reprimanded others after an Israeli missile strike killed a group of aid workers in Gaza. It released details about how the drone strikes played out, mistaking one of the aid workers for the Hamas group. Critics say Israel is not doing enough to protect innocent lives.
The strike caused an international outcry and a temporary suspension of aid to Gaza by several aid groups, including the WCK. Another Palestinian WCK worker was killed in August by Israeli gunfire, the group said.
The war in Gaza began with an attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, in which the army killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and captured about 250 people, according to Israeli figures.
Israeli retaliation has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants by number but say more than half of the dead are women and children.
It seems that the Israel-Hezbollah deal is still going on
Efforts to achieve a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly failed. But the US- and France-brokered deal on Lebanon appears to be stuck after it went into effect on Wednesday. However, Israel has accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire and Lebanon has blamed Israel for it.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had struck facilities used to smuggle weapons from Syria to Lebanon after the operation began, in what the military called a violation of its terms. There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities or activists monitoring the conflict in that country. Hezbollah did not immediately comment. Israeli warplanes have struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, citing ceasefire violations, several times since the deal began.
Israel's strike in Syria came as its militants stormed the country's largest city, Aleppo, in a shocking incident that added fresh uncertainty to the war-torn region.
The agreement between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah calls for a two-month ceasefire in which troops will withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli troops must return to their side of the border.
Many Lebanese, some of the 1.2 million displaced by the conflict, have been streaming south to their homes, despite warnings from the Israeli and Lebanese military to stay away from certain areas.
Israel says it reserves the right under the resolution to stop fighting any perceived violations. Israel made the return of tens of thousands of displaced Israelis a goal of the war with Hezbollah but the Israelis, worried that Hezbollah was not deterred and could still attack northern communities, were afraid to return home.
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