DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: An Israeli airstrike killed seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen, leading the charity to suspend delivery Tuesday of vital food aid to Gaza, where Israel’s offensive has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the brink of starvation.
Among the victims were aid workers from Poland, Australia, Ireland and Britain.
Footage showed the bodies, several wearing protective gear with the charity’s logo, at a hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah. Those killed include three British nationals, an Australian, a Polish national, an American-Canadian dual citizen and a Palestinian, according to hospital records.
World Central Kitchen, a food charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, was key to the recently opened sea route, which offered some hope for northern Gaza — where the U.N. says much of the population is on the brink of starvation, largely cut off from the rest of the territory by Israeli forces.
Andrés — whose charity operates in several countries wracked by wars or natural disasters, including Israel after the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the current conflict — said he was “heartbroken” by the deaths of his colleagues.
“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,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The charity said the team was traveling in a three-car convoy that included two armored vehicles, and its movements had been coordinated with the Israeli army.
Erin Gore, the CEO of the charity, said “this is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable.”
UNRWA, the main U.N. agency in Gaza, said in its latest report that 173 of its workers have been killed in the territory since the war began.
