World Central Kitchen pausing work in Gaza after vehicle hit by Israeli airstrike
5 reported killed; Israel says target was militant wanted in Oct. 7, 2023, attacks
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 U.S.-based charity said it's pausing operations in the territory as it tries to get more information.
Its aid delivery efforts in the war-ravaged territory were previously suspended last April after an Israeli strike killed seven of its workers, most of them foreigners.
"We are heartbroken to share that a vehicle carrying World Central Kitchen colleagues was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza," the charity said in its statement issued Saturday.
The Israeli military said it struck a wanted militant who had been involved in the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war.
In a later statement, it said that the alleged attacker had worked with WCK and it asked "senior officials from the international community and the WCK administration to clarify" how that had come about.
WCK said in its statement that it had no knowledge that anyone in the vehicle had alleged ties to the Oct. 7 attacks.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that three employees of World Central Kitchen were killed in the strike in Khan Younis.
The violence in Gaza rages on even as a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah appears to be holding, despite sporadic episodes that have tested its fragility. Israel on Saturday struck what it said were Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites along Syria's border with Lebanon.
Hezbollah began attacking Israel the day after the Oct. 7 attacks in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Fighting escalated in September, with massive Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon and an Israeli ground invasion of the country's south.
Previous strike on WCK convoy killed 7
The strike on the vehicle in Gaza was the latest in what aid agencies have described as the dangerous work of delivering aid in Gaza, where the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis that has displaced much of the territory's 2.3 million population and triggered widespread hunger.
World Central Kitchen provides freshly prepared meals to people in need following natural disasters or to those enduring conflict. Its teams have fanned out in Gaza and across Israel and Lebanon since the war began and have often served as a lifeline for people in Gaza who have struggled 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 workers with the WCK. The aid worker spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak with 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 heap of belongings — burned phones, a watch and stickers with the WCK logo — lay splayed 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. The Israeli military said the strike was a mistake.
The strike prompted an international outcry and the suspension of aid to Gaza for a brief period by several aid groups, including WCK. Another Palestinian WCK worker was killed in August by shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike, the group said.
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack, when militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took some 250 hostage, 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 count but say more than half the dead were women and children.
Israel-Hezbollah truce appears to be holding
Efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have faltered repeatedly. But the U.S.- and France-brokered deal for Lebanon appears to holding after it took effect on Wednesday. Still, Israel has accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire and Lebanon has accused Israel of the same.
On Saturday, Israel's military said it struck sites that had been used to smuggle weapons from Syria to Lebanon after the ceasefire took effect, which the military called a violation of its terms. There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities or activists monitoring the conflict in that country. Hezbollah did not immediately comment. Israeli aircraft have struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, citing ceasefire violations, several times since the truce began.
The Israeli strike in Syria came as insurgents there breached the country's largest city, Aleppo, in a shock offensive that added fresh uncertainty to a region reeling from multiple wars.
The truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah calls for an initial two-month ceasefire in which the militants are to withdraw north of Lebanon's Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border.
Many Lebanese, some of the 1.2 million displaced in the conflict, were streaming south to their homes, despite warnings by the Israeli and Lebanese militaries to stay away from certain areas.
Israel says it reserves the right under the ceasefire to strike against any perceived violations. Israel has made returning the tens of thousands of displaced Israelis home the goal of the war with Hezbollah but Israelis, concerned that Hezbollah has not been deterred and could still attack northern communities, have been apprehensive about returning home.
With files from CBC News and Reuters