(TargetDailyNews.com) – World Central Kitchen (WCK) will stop providing emergency rations and other food items to Gaza after an Israeli strike resulted in seven of its workers being killed. Another charity, Anera, is also pausing its work due to the risk of death faced by its workers.
The two organizations had been supplying roughly two million meals per week in Gaza where the UN is now warning that half the population is facing starvation due to the ongoing conflict.
The pause is also impacting regular aid convoys from Cyprus which were set up last month to help facilitate the distribution of aid after it was acknowledged that people were beginning to starve in the territory. The convoys will no longer make the journey.
A WCK convoy was hit on Monday evening, April 1st by the Israeli military, despite being in its assigned coastal route and being approved by the Israeli military. The convoy had just dropped off 100 tons of food to Deir al-Balah. The vessel was one of four in a flotilla. Over 240 tons of food couldn’t make it ashore due to the Israeli strike.
WCK alleged that the Israeli military had targeted them intentionally, highlighting that their vehicles were clearly marked with the logo of the charity and adding that they had authorization from the Israeli military. British, Australian, Palestinian, Canadian, and American nationals were killed in the strike.
Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi with the Israeli military called the attack a “grave mistake,” due to “misidentification at night.” He promised action to protect humanitarian aid workers and stressed that Israel was at war with Hamas, not the people of Palestine.
WCK officials stressed that this is far from the first time humanitarian workers have been attacked by the Israeli military; the total killed in the conflict so far stands at 196 people.
WCK is one of the largest providers of aid to Gaza with over 400 Palestinian staff working in the territory and a further 3,000 people working indirectly to help get food into the region. They supply 68 community kitchens with food items inside Gaza.
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