Israeli violence in Gaza increases with killing of WCK workers

Their homes and businesses destroyed and their stomachs empty, people in Gaza are dependent on aid that can only reach them if Israel gives its approval, an irony for Palestinians since it is Tel Aviv that has bombed and killed more than 32,000 in the enclave.

On Monday, Israeli military killed seven members of World Central Kitchen (WCK), a Washington DC-based aid group, that was delivering much-needed food supplies to people in Gaza.

The WCK team was leaving a Gaza warehouse in armoured vehicles bearing its logo when the convoy was hit by Israeli army missiles, despite having coordinated their movement with the Israeli military.

According to Haaretz, Israeli drones targeted and bombed the convoy three times. After the first strike on one car, injured aid workers escaped to a second vehicle, which was also hit by a drone. Then the seven aid workers managed to get into a third vehicle. But it was also hit with a missile, killing the occupants.

"This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organisations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable," WCK CEO Erin Gore said in a statement.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the incident involving foreign aid workers.

Several other similar horrors involving Palestinian civilians have transpired in Gaza. However, Israeli officials have not been as forthcoming in owning or regretting those incidents.

United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said getting much-needed food assistance to those in need “since October 7 has been very, very difficult,” and that “moving aid around in Gaza is, in all practical terms, impossible.”

A recurring theme

Israel has been limiting the flow of aid into Gaza for months, but some aid trucks have been allowed into the northern part of the strip where the situation is dire.

The United Nations has warned at least 576,000 people in Gaza, representing a quarter of the population, are “one step away from famine,” as global pressure mounts on Tel Aviv to allow aid to flow in.

On February 29, in what is dubbed as the “flour massacre”, Israeli troops opened fire on crowds of Palestinians in the south-west of Gaza City, killing at least 112 people and injuring some 760, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

“Israel has been intentionally starving the Palestinian people in Gaza since 8 October. Now it is targeting civilians seeking humanitarian aid and humanitarian convoys,” a group of UN experts said.

“Israel systematically denies and restricts the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza by intercepting deliveries at checkpoints, bombing humanitarian convoys and shooting at civilians seeking humanitarian assistance.”

Between mid-January and the end of February, 14 incidents of shooting, shelling, and targeting of people gathered to receive desperately needed supplies from trucks or airdrops were recorded.

By mid-March, the death toll from such attacks rose to over 400 people.

On March 15, Gaza’s media office said the Israeli army attacked aid distribution centres on five separate occasions within 48 hours, during which 56 people were killed and more than 300 injured. Israel denies that.

Collapsing healthcare

The health system in Gaza is on the brink of crumbling under Israel’s relentless attacks. The World Health Organization (WHO) has documented over 400 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza since October 7.

It said that, as a result, the attacks caused at least 685 casualties and 902 injuries, while close to 100 medical facilities and more than 100 ambulances have been damaged as well.

After nearly six months of Israel’s war on Gaza, continuous and indiscriminate strikes have reduced much of the besieged enclave to rubble.

On March 18, Israeli forces began a two-week-long siege in and around Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s biggest medical facility. WHO has described its destruction as “ripping the heart out of the health system” in the enclave.

"We've had contact with the staff. The directors told us that Al Shifa Hospital is gone. It's no longer able to function in any shape or form as a hospital," said WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris.

According to Gaza’s media office director Ismail Al-Thawabta, Israeli forces had killed 400 Palestinians in and around the hospital, including a woman and her son, who are both doctors.

"They bulldozed the courtyards, burying dozens of bodies of martyrs in the rubble, turning the place into a mass graveyard," Al-Thawabta said. "This is a crime against humanity."