In a video relayed on social networks, the roof of a vehicle of the American NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) appears pierced with a gaping hole, in the place of its logo in the shape of a stove: the impact of a drone shot that would not have exploded. Another vehicle is completely charred.
Monday 1er April, in the center of the Gaza Strip, seven members of the food distribution organization were killed in the Israeli strike.
According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, citing security sources, three missiles were fired, in quick succession, against the WCK convoy: after the first strike, the group of targeted humanitarians took refuge in the second vehicle, before this car was hit in turn . Wounded, the volunteers were killed by a third strike as they tried to protect themselves in the last vehicle of the convoy. The Israeli army said it was targeting an armed man, whom the military had spotted on a truck in the NGO’s hangar, but who then never joined the journey.
GPS coordinates transmitted to the Israeli army
“ Our convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir Al-Balah warehouse, where our team had unloaded more than 100 tonnes of humanitarian aid brought to Gaza via the sea corridor », Describes the organization in a press release published on its site, specifying that its GPS coordinates had been transmitted to the Israeli army so that the convoy could be correctly identified on the ground. The three vehicles, including two armored ones, were heading towards WCK’s logistics center in Rafah, on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, said Sean Carroll, CEO of Anera, the organization’s main partner in the area, reached by telephone in Amman, Jordan. The convoy was escorted by three security personnel during the journey.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari announced a “ investigation at the highest level » to clarify the circumstances of what is referred to as a “ tragic accident “. The bombing comes as Israel’s respect for the humanitarian laws of war has been questioned in recent weeks before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli army has “ unintentionally hit innocent people “. “ This can happen during a war. »
In a few months, the American NGO, created by the famous star chef José Andrés in 2011, has become one of the main humanitarian actors in the Gaza Strip where more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7. Several days after the Hamas attack, the organization set up its main operations center in Cairo, Egypt, from where its members began piloting the shipment of humanitarian aid by trucks, through the Sinai region and the Rafah crossing, despite numerous obstacles. Egypt would have imposed on them an intermediary organization for the coordination of these land deliveries. “ They have operational resources that I had never seen before », Specifies Sean Carroll, whose organization, Anera, has been present in the Gaza Strip for around fifty years, and with which WCK worked occasionally in 2021 and 2022.
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