World Central Kitchen suspends operations in Gaza after a vehicle was hit by an Israeli airstrike

An Israeli airstrike on a car in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday killed five people, a senior Palestinian health official said. Three of them were reported to be employees of World Central Kitchen.

The US-based charity said it was suspending operations in the territory while it tried to gather more information.

Its efforts to deliver aid to the war-torn territory were previously suspended last April after an Israeli strike killed seven of its workers, mostly foreigners.

“We are heartbroken to say that a vehicle carrying colleagues from World Central Kitchen has been hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza,” the charity said in its statement issued on Saturday.

The Israeli military said it had struck a wanted militant who was involved in the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, that sparked the war.

In a later statement, it said the alleged attacker had worked with WCK and asked “senior officials in the international community and the WCK administration to clarify” how this happened.

WCK said in its statement that it was not aware that anyone in the vehicle had alleged links to the October 7 attacks.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that three employees of World Central Kitchen were killed in the strike at Khan Younis.

Violence in Gaza continues, even as a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group appears to be holding, despite sporadic episodes who tested its fragility. Israel struck what it said were Hezbollah arms smuggling sites along Syria’s border with Lebanon on Saturday.

Hezbollah began attacking Israel the day after the October 7 attacks in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Fighting escalated in September, with massive Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon and an Israeli ground invasion in the south of the country.

The earlier strike on the WCK convoy killed 7

The strike on the Gaza vehicle was the latest in what aid agencies described as dangerous aid work in Gaza, where the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis that has displaced much of the population of 2.3 million. inhabitants of the territory and triggered widespread famine.

World Central Kitchen provides freshly prepared meals to people in need following natural disasters or those suffering conflict. Its teams have spread across Gaza and Israel and Lebanon since the start of the war and have often served as a lifeline for Gazans struggling to feed themselves and their families.

Palestinian health official Muneer Alboursh confirmed the strike, and an aid worker in Gaza confirmed that three killed were WCK workers. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

At Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza 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 in the strike. A pile of possessions—burnt phones, a watch, and WCK stickers—lay on the hospital floor.

Nazmi Ahmed said his nephew has been working for WCK for the past year. He said he was driving to the charity’s kitchens and warehouses.

“Today, he went out as usual for work … and was targeted without prior warning and for no reason,” Ahmed said.

In April, a strike on a WCK aid convoy killed seven workers – three British citizens, Polish and Australian citizens, a Canadian-American with dual citizenship and a Palestinian. The Israeli military said the strike was a mistake.

The strike prompted an international outcry and the suspension of aid to Gaza for a short period by several aid groups, including the WCK. Another Palestinian WCK worker was killed in August by shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike, the group said.

The Gaza war was sparked by a Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, when the militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their numbers, but say more than half of the dead were women and children.

The Israel-Hezbollah truce appears to be holding

Efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly weakened. But the US-France-brokered deal for Lebanon looks set to stand after it came into force on Wednesday. However, Israel accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire, and Lebanon accused Israel of doing so.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said it struck sites that were used to smuggle weapons from Syria into Lebanon after the ceasefire took effect, in what the military called a violation of the terms. There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities or activists monitoring the conflict in that country. Hezbollah did not immediately comment. Israeli jets have struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, citing ceasefire violations, several times since the ceasefire began.

The Israeli attack in Syria came as insurgents there swept into the country’s largest city, Aleppo, in a shock offensive that added new uncertainty to a region reeling from multiple wars.

The truce between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah calls for an initial two-month ceasefire in which the militants withdraw north of Lebanon’s Litani River and Israeli forces return to their side of the border.

Many Lebanese, some of the 1.2 million displaced by the conflict, were heading south to their homes despite warnings from the Israeli and Lebanese armies to stay away from certain areas.

Israel says it reserves the right under the ceasefire to strike against any perceived violations. Israel has made the return of tens of thousands of displaced Israelis a goal of the war with Hezbollah, but Israelis, worried that Hezbollah has not been deterred and could still attack northern communities, have been anxious to return home.