Israeli strike in Gaza kills World Kitchen workers; Israel says 1 was Oct 7 attacker

Associated Press Deir al-Balah (Gaza Strip): An Israeli airstrike on a car in the Gaza Strip on Saturday killed five people including employees of World Central Kitchen, and the charity said it was “urgently seeking more details” after Israel's military said it targeted a WCK worker who was part of the Hamas attack that sparked the war. WCK said it was “heartbroken” by the airstrike and that it had no knowledge anyone in the car had alleged ties to the Oct 7, 2023 attack, saying it was “working with incomplete information”. It said it was pausing operations in Gaza.

The charity's work in Gaza was temporarily suspended earlier this year after an Israeli strike killed seven of its workers, most of them foreigners. The Israeli military in a statement said the alleged Oct 7 attacker had taken part in the assault on the kibbutz of Nir Oz, and it asked “senior officials from the international community and the WCK administration to clarify" how he had come to work for the charity. The violence in Gaza raged even as a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appeared to hold, despite sporadic episodes that have tested its fragility.

The strike on the vehicle highlighted what aid agencies call the dangerous work of delivering aid in Gaza, where the war has displaced much of the 2.3 million population and triggered widespread hunger. Palestinian health official Muneer Alboursh confirmed the strike. At Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, a woman held up an employee badge bearing the WCK logo, the word “contractor” and the name of a man said to have been killed. Belongings burned phones, a watch and stickers with the WCK logo lay on the hospital floor.

Nazmi Ahmed said his nephew worked for WCK for the past year. He said he was driving to the charity's kitchens and warehouses. “Today, he went out as usual to work ... and was targeted without prior warning and without any reason,” Ahmed said. In April, a strike on a WCK aid convoy killed seven workers three British citizens, Polish and Australian nationals, a Canadian- American dual national and a Palestinian. Israel called the strike a mistake. That strike prompted an international outcry and the brief suspension of aid to Gaza by several groups, including WCK. Another Palestinian WCK worker was killed in August by shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike, the group said.

UN halts aid shipments through Gaza's main crossing after looting

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Sunday it is halting aid deliveries through the main cargo crossing into the war-ravaged Gaza Strip because of the threat of armed gangs who have looted recent convoys. It blamed the breakdown of law and order in large part on Israeli policies. The decision could worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as the cold, rainy winter sets in, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in squalid tent camps and reliant on food aid.

Experts were already warning of famine in the territory's north, which Israeli forces have almost completely isolated since early October. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the main aid provider in Gaza, said the route leading to the Kerem Shalom crossing is too dangerous on the Gaza side.