WCK founder voices frustration over Israel's explanation for killing staff

The seven World Central Kitchen aid workers killed by Israeli air strikes represented the "best of humanity" who risked everything "to feed people they did not know and will never meet," Jose Andres, the celebrity chef who founded the organisation, told mourners who gathered in the US capital to honour the dead.

Speaking at Washington National Cathedral on Thursday, Andres said the official [Israeli] explanation of their killing is not good enough, and there was no excuse for it.

"I know we all have many unanswered questions about what happened and why," Andres told mourners, demanding an investigation.

He appeared to struggle at times to maintain his composure, his words focused on the lives and contributions of the aid workers as he pleaded for greater compassion.

"The seven souls we mourn today were there so that hungry people could eat," said Andres, reading aloud their names. "Their examples should inspire us to do better, to be better."

The workers were killed on April 1 when munitions fired from Israeli armed drones ripped through vehicles in their convoy as they left one of World Central Kitchen’s warehouses: Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha; Britons John Chapman, James Kirby and James Henderson; dual U.S.-Canadian citizen Jacob Flickinger; Australian Lalzawmi Frankcom; and Polish citizen Damiam Sobol.

Hanging on the altar behind Andres were flags of the slain humanitarian workers' home countries, alongside the red, green, black and white Palestinian flag.

More than 550 mourners sat in pews below the cathedral's soaring stained glass windows.

Andres spoke in depth about each one and their contributions to the work of feeding people suffering through disaster and deprivation — human-made and natural — around the world.

He said Chapman was "brave, selfless and strong" and had the ability to make people around him feel "loved and protected."

Andres said Flickinger was a problem-solver, "exactly what you need" in the chaos of a disaster zone and Frankcom gave "joy to others even more than she gave food."

He talked of how Henderson had taught first aid in Ukraine and was an avid rugby player. He said Kirby, known to friends as “Kirbs," was driven to help people in need. And he said a town in Turkey had named a street after Sobol, in honor of his work there after an earthquake.

Andres noted that Abutaha's family was unable to attend the memorial, and he read from a message sent by the 25-year-old 's brother that called the aid workers "heroes" and urged World Central Kitchen to continue its work in Gaza and across the globe, "carrying on the spirit of the fallen, and the resilience of the Palestinian people."

At times, Andres spoke emotionally about the organisation's mission and why aid workers do what they do.

"We stand next to communities as they feed themselves, nourish themselves, heal themselves. People don’t want our pity. They want our respect. Our only way to show respect is facing the mayhem alongside them," he said. "We remind them by showing up that they are n ot alone in the darkness."

After an unusually swift Israeli investigation, Tel Aviv said the military officials involved in the attack had violated policy by acting based on a single grainy photo that one officer had contended — incorrectly — showed one of the seven workers was armed. The Israeli military dismissed two officers and reprimanded three others.

The international prominence and popularity of Andres and his non-profit work galvanised widespread outrage over the killings of the group’s workers.

The killings intensified demands from Biden administration and others that Israel's military change how it operates in Gaza to spare aid workers and Palestinian civilians in the territory who are facing a humanitarian crisis and desperately need aid from relief organisations as the UN warns of looming famine.

World Central Kitchen, along with several other humanitarian aid agencies, temporarily suspended work in the territory after the attack. "We haven't given up," World Central Kitchen spokesperson Linda Roth said last week. "We are in funeral mode right now."

Diplomats from more than 30 countries, along with representatives from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development were present at the eulogy.

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, one of the most active lawmakers pushing President Joe Biden to condition military aid on improved Israeli treatment of aid workers and Palestinian civilians, joined the mourners as a lone bagpiper played.