Seven aid workers from chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip on Monday, the NGO said in a statement.
Andrés’ organization has been leading the efforts to get food to Gaza by sea, and has delivered tons of supplies to the enclave via a ship from Cyprus over the past few weeks.
World Central Kitchen said it was pausing its operations in the area after the attack, and the Israeli military said it has “been reviewing the incident at the highest levels.”
Andrés’ group said the seven killed were from Australia, Poland, the U.K. and Palestine. One was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron confirmed in a post on X Tuesday that three British citizens were among those killed, calling their deaths “completely unacceptable.”
“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war,” World Central Kitchen CEO Erin Gore said in a statement early Tuesday morning.
“This is unforgivable.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the strike “a tragic incident of an unintentional targeting of innocent civilians in Gaza that we regret.”
“It happens during war and we are thoroughly investigating this,” he said in the statement Tuesday. “We will do everything to prevent this from happening again.”
World Central Kitchen said the targeted team “was traveling in a deconflicted zone in two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle.”
“Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza on the maritime route,” the statement said.
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