The Israeli army killed three World Central Kitchen (WCK) employees and at least two other people in an airstrike on a vehicle in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, in what was the third deadly attack on the humanitarian group this year.
The US-based charity, which runs community kitchens in Gaza, said it suspended its operations in Gaza following Saturday’s attack.
“We are heartbroken to report that a vehicle carrying colleagues from World Central Kitchen was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza,” WCK said in a statement.
“At the moment we are working with incomplete information and are urgently seeking more details.”
The Israeli military said it was targeting a “terrorist” who participated in the October 7 attacks on Israel and was employed by the WCK.
“The terrorist was under intelligence surveillance for a long time and was targeted based on reliable information about his real-time location,” Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a post on X.
However, WCK said it had “no knowledge of any individual in the vehicle having suspected ties to the October 7 Hamas attack.”
Earlier on Saturday, Palestinian Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal told the AFP news agency that the bodies of “at least five dead had been transported (to hospital), including those of the three employees of World Central Kitchen” following the attack.
“The three men worked for WCK and were hit while driving a WCK off-road vehicle in Khan Younis,” Basal said, adding that the vehicle had been “marked with its logo clearly visible.”
The Israeli military did not mention other victims of the attack, nor its effects on the food supply to Gaza’s starving population who rely on the services of the Washington-based charity.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said the attack would have serious implications for the delivery of aid to Gaza.
“So this is not about attacking Palestinians, Palestinian workers and humanitarian organizations. It attacks all sources of aid, and all sources of community kitchens, and those who work tirelessly to prevent famine in Gaza,” she said.
The Israeli army has repeatedly targeted aid workers since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023.
A series of Israeli airstrikes hit a WCK convoy in April, killing seven of its aid workers. Another staff member was killed in an Israeli attack in July.
The Israeli military claimed the attacks were “mistakes” and fired two officers and reprimanded three others for their role.
But an investigation by Tel Aviv Tribune’s Sanad verification agency, using open source information, eyewitness accounts and images from the site, found the attacks were intentional.
Israel has also killed a record number of United Nations personnel in its war on Gaza.
Antoine Renard, representative of the World Food Program (WFP) in Palestine, told Tel Aviv Tribune that humanitarian organizations are facing extreme difficulties in delivering basic necessities to Gaza.
“One of the biggest challenges facing the World Food Program is that over the last three months we have not had the capacity to provide assistance to 1.1 million people,” Renard said on Saturday.
“We are facing a clear lack of the aid we are supposed to provide… In November we were only able to reach 815,000 people. The vast majority of them have only received a third of the rations they are supposed to receive.”
Dozens dead in Gaza
In total, at least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave overnight and into Saturday, Gaza medics said.
Among them, at least three were killed in an Israeli bombardment against a group of Palestinians in the northern Gaza town of Jabalia, and another was killed in a drone attack near the Halimah school al-Saadiyah, in the same area.
At least 44,382 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry, which said Saturday that at least 105,142 others had been injured and thousands remained missing.
Meanwhile, Hamas, whose fighters continue to report fighting with Israeli soldiers in Gaza, condemned in a statement Israel’s use of internationally banned weapons that have been documented by doctors and others for causing the bodies of the victims to “evaporate” after the impact.
The group also released a video showing one of dozens of Israeli captives still held in the enclave saying “time is running out” and imploring US President-elect Donald Trump to secure his release from captivity.
Last week, the group reported that one captive was killed and another seriously injured in the north following Israeli attacks.
