[News] Aid to Gaza suspended after Israel murders World Central Kitchen workers

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/aid-gaza-suspended-after-israel-murders-world-central-kitchen-workers>
Aid to Gaza suspended after Israel murders World Central Kitchen workers

Tamara Nassar <https://electronicintifada.net/people/tamara-nassar> Rights
and Accountability
<https://electronicintifada.net/blog/rights-and-accountability> 3 April 2024
------------------------------

Palestinians inspect the heavily damaged vehicles after the Israeli attacks
target officials working at the US-based organization World Central Kitchen
in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, on 2 April.
APA images / Polaris

The Israeli airforce struck a convoy of aid workers overnight on Tuesday in
Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, killing seven members of the US-based World
Central Kitchen charity.

The “team was traveling in a deconflicted zone in two armored cars branded
with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle,” WCK said
<https://wck.org/news/gaza-team-update>.

Local media circulated footage depicting the aftermath of the strike on the
vehicle. The footage reveals a hole from the missile impact piercing
through a large banner affixed to the roof, prominently displaying the
organization’s name and logo for identification.
The aid workers killed in the attack were from Australia, Poland, the
United Kingdom and Palestine, and one was a dual citizen of the US and
Canada. Graphic images depicting the corpses of aid workers, clad in
bulletproof vests bearing
<https://twitter.com/swilkinsonbc/status/1774932234148917475> the logo of
World Central Kitchen, circulated on social media.

“Some of them were [just] body parts, another had their face amputated,
some lost upper or lower body parts – deformations that show they were
targeted by a rocket that hit their cars,” Marwan al-Hams, director of
al-Najjar Hospital, said
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/01/world-central-kitchen-gaza-deaths-wck/>
.

“They are currently being kept at Najjar Hospital until their embassies or
consular representatives are present,” al-Hams added.
WCK announced the immediate suspension of all its operations in the region.
Ships that had already set sail from Cyprus as part of WCK’s operations
were reportedly turning back.

Anera, a US charity providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians, also
announced
<https://www.anera.org/press/unprecedented-pause-anera-suspends-gaza-operations-amid-rising-threats/>
a pause in its operations in Gaza. It was the second largest
<https://twitter.com/elgindy_/status/1775151678955663615> humanitarian aid
group in the Gaza Strip after the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA).

“The unprecedented scale of the current conflict and the disregard for
international law necessitate this historic pause in our operations,” the
group said.

The Gaza logistics and support coordinator for the group, Mousa Shawwa, was
also killed
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/us-charity-demands-probe-killing-gaza-aid-worker>
in an Israeli strike on Deir al-Balah last month.
“Everyone does as he pleases”

“This happens in wartime,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of the
killings.

“We are thoroughly looking into it, are in contact with the governments [of
the foreigners among the dead], and will do everything to ensure it does
not happen again,” he added, according
<https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-794956> to *The Jerusalem Post*
.

He said
<https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-04-02-2024-9bdf66771b62af37d85a2800f71c0e6c>
that the killings were “unintended.”

Israel’s military chief of staff Herzl Halevi said
<https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1775290147426152931> that “the strike was
not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers.”

He added: “It was a mistake that followed a misidentification – at night
during a war in very complex conditions. It shouldn’t have happened.”

Unnamed Israeli army sources told
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-02/ty-article/.premium/idf-sources-gaza-aid-workers-killed-because-officers-on-the-ground-do-what-they-want/0000018e-a06e-d9c2-afbe-a8fe319b0000>
*Haaretz* that the killing “stemmed from poor discipline among field
commanders, not a lack of coordination between the army and aid
organizations.”

An Israeli intelligence source told the newspaper that the army’s southern
command “know exactly what the cause of the attack was – in Gaza, everyone
does as he pleases.”

John Kirby, US State Department spokesperson, said “there’s no evidence”
that the Israeli army killing of the WCK staff was deliberate.
Kirby asserted that the US State Department has “not found any incidents
where the Israelis have violated international humanitarian law.” “Targeted”
attack?

But the CEO of World Central Kitchen described
<https://wck.org/news/gaza-team-update> it as a “targeted attack” by the
Israeli army.

The charity works and coordinates very closely with the Israeli army, as
the latter itself has confirmed.
“WCK are thought to have the closest cooperation with the Israeli army and
seemed to enjoy preferential treatment for being from its perspective
‘neutral’ (ie no advocacy work),” Tania Hary, the executive director of
Israeli rights group Gisha, said
<https://twitter.com/taniahary/status/1774951729018114349>.

The nature of the attack raises suspicions that it may have been deliberate.

“An Israeli drone fired three missiles one after the other,” unnamed
“defense sources” privy to the details of the attack told
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-02/ty-article/.premium/idf-bombed-wck-aid-convoy-3-times-targeting-armed-hamas-member-who-wasnt-there/0000018e-9e75-d764-adff-9eff29360000>
the Tel Aviv newspaper *Haaretz*.

The source stated that the Israeli army conducted the attack based on
“suspicion that a terrorist was traveling with the convoy,” the newspaper
reported.

The Israeli army’s operation room, tasked with coordinating and securing
the aid convoy’s route, supposedly “identified an armed man on the truck
and suspected that he was a terrorist,” *Haaretz* reported, citing unnamed
sources familiar with the details of the attack.

“Until the actions that preceded the strike, carried out by [an Elbit]
Hermes 450 drone, were completed, the truck reached the warehouse with the
World Central Kitchen’s three cars,” including the seven aid workers,
*Haaretz* reported.

Minutes later, three trucks belonging to the air group left the warehouse,
“without the truck, on which the ostensibly armed man was located,”
*Haaretz* reported.

The newspaper added that the “armed man did not leave the warehouse,”
citing unnamed “defense sources.”

Despite neither the man nor the truck he was in having left the warehouse
or accompanied the convoy after its departure – which, either way, does not
justify the killing of humanitarian aid workers – it remains unclear why
the Israeli air force proceeded with the attack and in the manner it did.

The aid vehicles carrying the seven workers continued to move along the
route approved by the Israeli army, as reported by *Haaretz*, and continued
to coordinate with it.

“When the convoy was driving along the approved route, the war room of the
unit responsible for security of the route ordered the drone operators to
attack one of the cars with a missile,” *Haaretz* reported.

Some of the aid workers managed to get out of the vehicle after the missile
hit it and moved to one of the other two cars.

“They continued to drive and even notified the people responsible that they
were attacked, but, seconds later, another missile hit their car,” *Haaretz*
reported.

“The third car in the convoy approached, and the passengers began to
transfer to it the wounded who had survived the second strike – in order to
get them out of danger. But then a third missile struck them.”

Researchers identified the locations from where the three missiles were
fired:
An unnamed Israeli army source cited by *Haaretz* attempts to distance top
decision-makers from the attack, implying that the decision to launch it
was made in the field.

“It’s frustrating,” the source told *Haaretz*.

“We’re trying our hardest to accurately hit terrorists, and utilizing every
thread of intelligence, and in the end the units in the field decide to
launch attacks without any preparation, in cases that have nothing to do
with protecting our forces.”

If anything, this only underscores the brazenness of Israel’s trigger-happy
soldiers and air force, assured of a lack of consequences awaiting them
over their actions.
This was reportedly not the first time that staff from the World Central
Kitchen had been on the receiving end of Israeli fire.

Just days ago, an Israeli sniper fired at a vehicle
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-02/ty-article/.premium/idf-bombed-wck-aid-convoy-3-times-targeting-armed-hamas-member-who-wasnt-there/0000018e-9e75-d764-adff-9eff29360000>
en route to a food warehouse owned by the organization in the southern area
of Khan Younis.

The gunfire struck the vehicle’s windshield but the aid volunteer was not
injured.

The World Central Kitchen immediately filed a complaint with the Israeli
army, *Haaretz* reported, urging them to cease firing at its operatives
during food delivery missions.
Hypocrisy

“I am heartbroken and grieving for their families and friends and our whole
WCK family,” said
<https://twitter.com/chefjoseandres/status/1774947232539644286> José
Andrés, the celebrity chef who heads the organization.

“The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs
to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid
workers, and stop using food as a weapon.”

Andrés’s statements were markedly different from his previous open support
for Israel’s attacks on Gaza, which came several days after Israel had
launched its assault on the Strip and openly committed to using food as a
weapon
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-cuts-food-water-millions-palestinians-it-calls-human-animals>
to punish the entire population of Gaza.

“You as a minister have to first recognize that the Hamas attack against
civilians is a terrorist act,” Andrés wrote
<https://twitter.com/chefjoseandres/status/1713999167100424508> on 16
October, in response to Spanish minister Ione Belarra.

Belarra was denouncing Israel’s genocide in Gaza and slamming Israel for
“carrying out war crimes in the Gaza Strip, massive bombings, water and
electricity cuts,” as well as not “letting in humanitarian aid.”

That did not phase Andrés then, who demanded that Belarra recognize that
Israel is “defending its citizens, then you can ask for restraint and
respect for the lives of civilians in Gaza.”

The celebrity chef continued his attack on Belarra.

“Are you pro-Russia and pro-Hamas? You do not represent me or Spain. She
does not deserve to be a minister.”
Built from the rubble

Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip over the last six months has been
marred by attempts to whitewash the manmade catastrophe with humanitarian
gestures.

The latest face of this effort has been the World Central Kitchen,
which describes
itself <https://wck.org/mission-vision-values> as “first to the frontlines,
providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate and community crises.”

The organization sent its first aid shipment to Gaza
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/whats-real-purpose-bidens-gaza-port>
in mid-March.

A video with a hopeful soundtrack, posted by the group, shows smiling
workers constructing a temporary pier on the shores of Gaza against the
backdrop of a coastal enclave that the Israeli army has turned into vast
killing fields and heaps of rubble.
The footage shows workers hastily building a temporary pier to facilitate
the arrival of the aid ship carrying 200 tons of food, medicine, supplies
and other essentials.

“This was the first boat to reach Gaza in almost two decades,” WCK said.

This is untrue.

Shortly after Israel imposed its siege on Gaza by land, air, and sea in
2007, international activists managed to break the maritime blockade by
delivering aid via boat, defying the Israeli occupation.

Despite a few successful attempts, the Israeli navy repeatedly attacked the
boats; and in the case of the *Mavi Marmara
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/mavi-marmara>* in 2010, killed and
kidnapped
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israels-attack-gaza-freedom-flotilla-looking-back-year-later>
activists on it.

The only reason the World Central Kitchen has been able to deliver aid into
Gaza by boat is because the genocidaires of Gaza have given them the green
light and safe passage to do so.

“Every step was carried out with permission from the Israeli military,” *The
New York Times* reported
<https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/world/middleeast/gaza-aid-ship-jetty.html>,
speaking to the charity’s director of emergency response.

Israel has blocked the import and export of supplies, goods and persons in
and out of the Gaza Strip for 17 years – an act of collective punishment
for the 2.3 million Palestinians in the tiny territory.
Eliminating and replacing UNRWA

Israel’s aim has been to eliminate and replace UNRWA in its role as the
established provider and coordinator of aid distribution within the Gaza
Strip.

In January, Israel baselessly accused a handful of UNRWA employees of
participating in the 7 October military operation. These allegations were
based on confessions that were likely obtained under torture
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/israel-opt-horrifying-cases-of-torture-and-degrading-treatment-of-palestinian-detainees-amid-spike-in-arbitrary-arrests/>
of Palestinian detainees.
This prompted donor countries, including the US, the agency’s largest
funder, to suspend
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/funding-freeze-could-halt-unrwa-operations-end-month>
$440 million in aid.

In recent weeks, several countries – including Australia, Sweden and Canada
– announced
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/australia-resume-funding-uns-main-palestinian-relief-agency-2024-03-15/>
that they have resumed financial contributions to UNRWA.
No self-determination

World Central Kitchen was part of the plan for a “maritime corridor” to the
coastal enclave announced by US President Joe Biden last month.

Countries that have consistently supported Israel’s genocide of
Palestinians in Gaza or have refused to call for a ceasefire have been on
board
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/08/joint-statement-from-the-european-commission-the-republic-of-cyprus-the-united-arab-emirates-the-united-kingdom-and-the-united-states-endorsing-the-activation-of-a-maritime-corridor-to-deliver-hum/>
for this “maritime corridor” plan.

Israel, the engineer of the Gaza famine, was the first to endorse the idea
of establishing a maritime corridor to address a crisis it initiated and is
now worsening.

On Tuesday, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari even called
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hagari-idf-has-expressed-sincere-sorrow-to-world-central-kitchen-and-our-allies-will-conduct-transparent-probe/>
the work of World Central Kitchen “critical.”

But there remains no technical reason why aid trucks should not be able to
enter Gaza by land. It is the most efficient, cost-effective and safe
method of delivering aid to Gaza, and aid trucks remain stuck at the Rafah
crossing with Egypt, unable to enter Gaza because Israel won’t allow them
in.

Washington refuses to use any of its enormous leverage to compel Tel Aviv
to do so, or to end the siege on Gaza altogether.

The construction of a temporary pier and the dropping of aid packages from
the sky are political gestures aimed at maneuvering and establishing
political realities on the ground.

To this end, humanitarian aid airdrops, facilitated by the Jordanian air
force
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/demeaning-airdrops-over-gaza-are-humanitarian-aid-theater/44946>,
have evolved into publicity stunts for governments that have aided, abetted
and defended Israel’s slaughter and campaign of destruction in Gaza.

These governments seek to whitewash their active roles in the genocide,
maintaining support – and impeding efforts to stop – Israel’s killing
machine.

The goal is to reshape the narrative of what is undeniably a war against
civilians by shifting the focus from its political roots to “solving” a
vague humanitarian crisis that Israel started and is worsening through its
war on UNRWA.

This depoliticization serves to obscure the true nature of the genocide and
the impending famine
<https://www.wfp.org/news/famine-imminent-northern-gaza-new-report-warns>,
reducing it to a series of tragic and unexplained instances of starvation
and death within a “war-torn” landscape.

All the while, Western countries are helping Israel systematically destroy
UNRWA, which is the entity most capable of effectively organizing
humanitarian aid on a mass scale in Gaza.

Not only does this absolve Israel of its obligation to halt the slaughter
and deliberate starvation of Palestinians, but it also renders Palestinians
dependent on international aid and emergency relief – which is obstructed
by the same army that supposedly coordinates with, and now kills, those
responsible for its delivery.

Creating an environment in which Palestinians depend on aid prevents them
from exercising the self-determination necessary to govern themselves.

Stripping away that self-determination has been a central, discernible
tenet of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
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