Faced searing criticism on Tuesday, Israel acknowledged mistakenly carrying out a strike that killed seven staff members of a US-based charity group who were unloading food brought by sea to the war-torn Gaza Strip.
The group World Central Kitchen said it was pausing operations after a “targeted Israeli strike” on Monday killed Australian, British, Palestinian, Polish and US-Canadian staff. The Israeli military promised to investigate the incident “at the highest levels.”
WCK has been working to unload food brought to Gaza by sea from Cyprus. The killing of its aid workers compounds already intense criticism Israel has faced by those accusing it of withholding aid from the hunger-stricken region.
The White House was “heartbroken,” US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson wrote on X, stressing that relief workers “must be protected as they deliver aid that is desperately needed.”
“I am heartbroken and appalled that we — World Central Kitchen and the world — lost beautiful lives today because of a targeted attack by the IDF,” the group’s CEO Erin Gore said.
“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war,” she added. “This is unforgivable.”
The bodies of the aid workers killed were taken to a hospital mortuary in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, an AFP photographer reported. One of them was laid on a makeshift stretcher, wearing a top emblazoned with the WCK name and logo.
The aid group said the team had been traveling in a “de-conflicted” area in a convoy of “two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle” at the time of the strike.
“Despite coordinating movements with the (Israeli army), the convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza on the maritime route,” it said.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in an English-language video statement Tuesday that he had spoken to the founder of World Central Kitchen to express his condolences following the tragedy.
“We have been reviewing the incident at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of what happened and how it happened,” said Hagari, commending the charity organization for having come to the help of Israelis displaced after October 7.
“For the last few months, the IDF has been working closely with the World Central Kitchen to assist them in fulfilling their noble mission of helping bring food and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza,” he said. “The work of WCK is critical; they are on the frontlines of humanity.”
The spokesperson promised that “we will get to the bottom of this and we will share our findings transparently.”
The IDF acknowledged that it had carried out the strike, although it said it did not know the full circumstances yet. Regardless, the IDF said the strike was a serious incident that should not have happened.
An initial IDF probe into the incident was expected to be released to the public in the coming days, as the General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism — an independent military body responsible for investigating unusual incidents amid the war — carries out a more in-depth investigation.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi was personally involved in the military’s response to the incident, including updating the head of the US Central Command on the strike.
Halevi was due to meet Tuesday with the head of the IDF Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, at the unit’s base in Beersheba, to be briefed on the military’s initial probe into the strike.
The chief of staff was also set to inaugurate a new joint command center with the Defense Ministry’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), aimed at better coordinating the humanitarian activity in the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also admitted that the IDF “unintentionally” killed the seven aid workers.
“Unfortunately, in the last day there was a tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip,” he said as he left a hospital in Jerusalem after a hernia operation.
“It happens in war, we will investigate it right to the end… We are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again,” he said.
The president of the city of Przemysl, in southeastern Poland, identified the Polish WCK volunteer who was killed as Damian Sobol.
Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on X that he had asked the Israeli ambassador in Warsaw for “urgent explanations.”
“He assured me that Poland would soon receive the results of the investigation into this tragedy. I join in my condolences to the family of our brave volunteer and all civilian victims in the Gaza Strip,” Sikorski said.
The Polish foreign ministry posted on X that “Poland objects to the disregard for international humanitarian law and the protection of civilians, including humanitarian workers.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese named the slain Australian aid worker as 44-year-old Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, and said his government had contacted Israel to demand that those responsible be held accountable.
“This is a human tragedy that should never have occurred, that is completely unacceptable and Australia will seek full and proper accountability,” he told a press conference on Tuesday.
Albanese said innocent civilians and humanitarian workers needed to be protected and reiterated his call for a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza along with more aid to help those suffering from “tremendous deprivation.”
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote on X, “I condemn the attack and urge an investigation. Despite all the demands to protect civilians and humanitarian workers, we see new innocent casualties,” adding that the incident further strengthens the need for an immediate ceasefire.
The president of Cyprus, from which WCK sent aid to the Gaza Strip, on Tuesday called for an immediate probe into the killing of the organization’s workers.
“We need to double down on efforts to get aid to Gaza,” Nikos Christodoulides said, after a meeting with European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, telling reporters the maritime corridor for aid from his country to Gaza would continue to operate.
After visiting the Jabal al-Hussein Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan, on Tuesday, Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez said: “I hope and demand that the Israeli government clarifies as soon as possible the circumstances of this brutal attack that has taken the lives of seven aid workers who were doing nothing more than helping.”
Founded by Spanish-American celebrity chef José Andrés in the wake of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, WCK is one of the largest charities working in Gaza. An apolitical group, it has earned the appreciation of Israel’s government for its help with Israelis displaced after October 7. It has been a trailblazer in transferring aid into Gaza, going so far as to construct an improvised pier out of debris on which to land supplies for the embattled enclave.