From the Liveblog of
Thursday, April 4, 2024
WCK calls for independent probe into Israeli strike that killed seven of its staff
World Central Kitchen is calling for an independent investigation into the Israeli strikes that killed seven of its aid workers in Gaza.
In a statement, the international food charity says it has asked Australia, Canada, Poland, the United States and the United Kingdom, whose citizens were killed, to join them in demanding “an independent, third-party investigation into these attacks.”
“We asked the Israeli government to immediately preserve all documents, communications, video and/or audio recordings, and any other materials potentially relevant to the April 1 strikes,” the statement says.
Israel says it carried out the strikes by mistake and that it has launched its own investigation into the attack.
The military carried out multiple strikes on a convoy of three cars, at least one of which was clearly marked with the charity’s logo. World Central Kitchen says it coordinated the team’s movements with the army, which was “aware of their itinerary, route and humanitarian mission.”
The workers were delivering aid that had arrived by sea in a recently opened maritime corridor aimed at getting food to hundreds of thousands of hungry Palestinians in northern Gaza, which has been largely isolated by Israeli forces for months.
The attack interrupted those efforts, as World Central Kitchen and other charities suspended operations over the deteriorating security situation. The ships returned to Cyprus with an estimated 240 tons of undelivered humanitarian aid.
