US charity World Central Kitchen said on Saturday it was “pausing operations in Gaza at this time” after an Israeli airstrike hit a vehicle carrying its workers.
The Israeli military confirmed that a Palestinian employee of WCK was killed in an attack, accusing the employee of being a “terrorist” who “infiltrated into Israel last year and took part in the deadly October 7 massacre”.
WCK said in a statement that it “had no knowledge that any of the people in the vehicle had any alleged connection to the October 7 Hamas attack”, and did not confirm any deaths.
Earlier on Saturday, Gaza Civil Defense Agency spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP that five people, including “three World Central Kitchen employees”, were killed in the strike in the main southern city of Khan Yunis.
“All three men worked for WCK and were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Yunis,” Bassal said. He added that “its logo was clearly visible” on the vehicle.
WCK confirmed that its staff were affected by the strike, but added: “At this time, we are working with incomplete information and are urgently seeking more details.”
The Israeli military statement said representatives of the unit responsible for overseeing humanitarian needs in Gaza “approached the international community and senior officials of the WCK administration to clarify this issue and regarding the recruitment of workers who participated in the October 7 There was a demand to order an immediate investigation.” Genocide”.
It also said that “a civilian unidentified vehicle was hit and its movement on the route was not coordinated to transport aid” in its attack in Khan Yunis.
In April, an Israeli attack killed seven WCK employees – one Australian, three Britons, one North American, one Palestinian and one Pole.
Israel said it was targeting a “Hamas gunman” in that attack, but the military acknowledged a series of “serious mistakes” and violations of its rules of engagement.
The United Nations said last week that 333 aid workers had been killed since the war began in October last year, 243 of whom were employees of UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
An attack by Palestinian militants on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killed 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 44,382 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
