Israel kills World Central Kitchen workers, claims target was 7 October attacker

Israel has conducted a missile attack on a car carrying employees of the US-based non-governmental humanitarian food agency World Central Kitchen in Khan Yunis, Gaza, claiming the target of the strike was one of the 7 October attackers.

“The terrorist, Hazmi Kadih, infiltrated Israel and took part in the murderous October 7th massacre in Kibbutz Nir Oz,” the IDF said in a statement.

The IDF also stated that they could not link Kadih to “a specific abduction attempt.”

The strike is believed to have killed five people and that three were World Central Kitchen employees.

World Central Kitchen confirmed that its employees have been killed.

“We are heartbroken to share that a vehicle carrying World Central Kitchen colleagues was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. At this time, we are working with incomplete information and are urgently seeking more details,” the official World Central Kitchen posted on X, formerly Twitter.

The World Central Kitchen has said it had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties to the October 7th Hamas attack.

International aid agency Save the Children also said in a statement that a 39-year-old staffer, who it identified as Ahmad Faisal Isleem Al-Qadi, has also been killed in an airstrike in Khan Younis.

It was unclear if the two men were killed in the same strike. Israel has not immediately commented on Save the Children’s statement.

“There are not strong enough words to express the grief and outrage we feel at the loss of Ahmad in an Israeli airstrike. He was a valued member of our team and loved by all who met him,” Inger Ashing, the Save the Children chief executive, said in the statement.

In another attack in Khan Younis, medics said at least nine Palestinians were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a car near a crowd receiving flour, a vehicle that was used by security personnel tasked with overseeing aid deliveries into Gaza.

The Israeli military says that it does not target civilians and accuses Hamas of operating from civilian facilities and using Gaza’s population as human shields, which the group denies.

World Central Kitchen announced that they are again pausing operations in Gaza.

World Central Kitchen paused its operations in Gaza in April when seven of its employees were killed in three attacks on three of it vehicles.

Among the people killed in the April attack were three British men, formerly soldiers, working as security contractors.

Israel says that attack was due to the ‘misidentification’ of the convoy and some legal experts say the second and third strikes on the convoy may constitute a war crime.

The Israeli government agency which coordinates civilian and humanitarian operations in Gaza, COGAT, said it would be asking WCK to investigate how it hired staff it alleged were involved in the attacks on Israel, which were the catalyst for the war against Hamas in Gaza.

“The COGAT repeatedly calls for the international organizations that operate in the Gaza Strip to provide the Israeli authorities with details of the local employees that are hired by them in the Gaza Strip, to ensure that terrorists are not making use of the Humanitarian realm,” the IDF said in a statement.

The attack was conducted in northern Gaza, where a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent,” according to independent Famine Review Committee (FRC).

Three weeks ago the body issued a rare statement saying that a the food security and availably situation in northern Gaza is a “looming catastrophe (that) is likely to dwarf anything we have seen so far in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023.”

“Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation,” the FRC said.

On November 21, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, together with a former Hamas commander, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

One of the crimes Netanyahu and Gallant is being alleged to have committed is the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.

Israeli has rejected what it calls ‘biased’ warning of famine in Gaza from the FRC and have announced that it will contest the arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant.