This was not an Israeli blunder. On the evening of Saturday, November 30, the Israeli army deliberately targeted a vehicle in southern Gaza carrying five people, three of whom were working for the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK). WCK, which had already lost seven employees in a series of strikes targeting one of its convoys on April 1, had resumed its activities a month later, despite the extreme difficulties faced by humanitarian organizations there.

On Saturday evening, all of the car's passengers were killed. Among the victims was a man whom the Israeli army has accused of having taken part in the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. In a statement, WCK officials announced that they were halting their operations and claimed to have "no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties to the October 7th Hamas attack."

On Saturday, another aid worker employed by the NGO Save the Children, was also killed in the south of the Gaza Strip, in undetermined circumstances. On the same day, nine people waiting for a flour distribution also lost their lives following a strike on a vehicle parked nearby.

While the north of Gaza is still under a devastating siege by the Israeli army and remains largely inaccessible, the south of the enclave is subject – in addition to military operations and strikes – to the rise of armed gangs attacking aid convoys. On Sunday, this looting prompted UNRWA, the UN agency in charge of Palestinian refugees, to halt the delivery of aid from the Kerem Shalom crossing point between Israel and southern Gaza, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini announced on X, adding that it was a "difficult decision (...) at a time hunger is rapidly deepening.

A large number of trucks carrying humanitarian aid enter at this point, before being inspected. However, "the road out of this crossing has not been safe for months. On 16 November, a large convoy of aid trucks was stolen by armed gangs." Trucks carrying food suffered the same fate on Saturday, said Lazzarini. "The humanitarian operation has become unnecessarily impossible," he said, before concluding: "The responsibility of protection of aid workers and supplies is with the State of Israel as the occupying power.."

Cogat, the Israeli Defense Ministry agency responsible for managing civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, said convoys were being attacked by Hamas members and criminal gangs, and claimed on X that "only 7% of the aid that came into the Gaza Strip in November was coordinated by UNRWA." Aid workers consider the UN agency to be the backbone of the humanitarian system in Gaza.

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