World Central Kitchen says its convoy was hit “despite coordinating movements with the IDF.”
World Central Kitchen said it will be “pausing our operations immediately in the region.” | AFP via Getty Images
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday admitted that an “unintentional” Israeli airstrike killed “innocent people” in Gaza, after seven workers from World Central Kitchen were bombed.
The aid organization said the dead included Australian, Polish and British citizens.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was “shocked and saddened” by the death of a British aid worker, adding “clearly there are questions that need to be answered.”
According to local media reports, Netanyahu said: “Unfortunately, in the last 24 hours there was a tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip.
“It happens in war, we check it to the end, we are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again.”
World Central Kitchen, the U.S.-based nonprofit which provides meals to civilians suffering from hunger due to conflicts and natural disasters, blamed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a statement on its website.
“The WCK team was traveling in a deconflicted zone in two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle,” the group’s statement read.
World Central Kitchen added that its convoy was hit “despite coordinating movements with the IDF.”
A Palestinian and a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen were also killed in the strike, the group said.
“We have been reviewing the incident at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of what happened and how it happened,” said IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari, according to the Times of Israel.
Israeli forces have been bombarding Hamas in Gaza after Palestinian militants killed 1,200 people and took hundreds of others hostage in a deadly attack on Oct. 7 last year.
One of the aid workers who was killed has been identified by authorities as 43-year-old Australian Lalzawmi Frankcom.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described Frankcom’s death as “completely unacceptable” and said he had summoned the Israeli ambassador.
“We want full accountability for this because this is a tragedy that should never have occurred,” Albanese said.
U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson wrote on X that the White House is “heartbroken and deeply troubled by the strike” and called on Israel “to swiftly investigate what happened.”
World Central Kitchen said it will be “pausing our operations immediately in the region.” The group has provided hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid to starving Gazans, amounting to more than 42 million meals over 175 days.
More than 70 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million is facing “catastrophic hunger,” according to a United Nations-backed report published last month.
Source: Politico
