We’ve been reporting all day on an Israeli attack that killed seven people working with the United States-based NGO World Central Kitchen in the Gaza Strip.
This attack is only the latest by the Israeli army on humanitarian workers and the aid they labor to distribute, and throughout its war on Gaza it has been accused by governments, the UN and major NGOs of deliberately blocking aid at the borders of the besieged enclave .
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the deaths World Central Kitchen staff brings the number of aid workers killed in Gaza since October 7 to 196.
A recent feature of Israel’s war has been attacks on Palestinians seeking aid, specifically in north Gaza, which have killed dozens and wounded hundreds, including members of a committee of local tribal officials who were organizing the distribution of aid and were in contact with the Israeli army.
Under these harsh restrictions and constant attacks, Gaza is teetering on the brink of famine, and nowhere is the situation more serious than in northern Gaza, according to a recent UN-backed report issued last month by the world’s hunger monitor, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
As Philippe Lazzarini, director of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, puts it, this famine in Gaza is entirely “man made”, and requires “a complete reversal in policies from the Israeli Government”. The consensus of world humanitarian organizations, including Lazzarini’s, is that all of the Gaza Strip’s border crossings need to be opened to allow through the thousands of aid trucks waiting, and an immediate ceasefire is required to prevent what could be the worst humanitarian disaster of this already catastrophic war.
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