The attack by the Israeli army against the caravan of World Central Kitchen, the oenagé of Spanish chef José Andrés, in which seven aid workers died on April 1, was not an isolated incident. It was warned then by several humanitarian workers as well as the United Nations. And an investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW) wanted to reaffirm this on Tuesday, when it revealed that the Israeli army has attacked at least eight installations and convoys of humanitarian organizations since the beginning of the war in the strip of Gaza, on October 7.
According to the UN, more than 250 humanitarian workers have died in the Gaza war. Of the total, nearly 190 belonged to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). The toll includes one of its security guards, who was shot dead by Israeli troops on Monday as he was riding in a vehicle marked with the UN symbol on his way to the European hospital in Rafah, the commissioner-general reported of this agency, Philippe Lazzarini.
According to the investigation of the United States oenagé, the analyzed attacks killed 15 people, including two children, and injured 16 others. “The Israeli authorities did not send advance warnings to any of the humanitarian organizations before the attacks,” HRW added. All had given their coordinates to Israeli troops to ensure their safety, as did the WCK employees, who were killed when a drone fired three missiles at them, one for each vehicle in the convoy, and that the Israeli army concluded that it was due to a “misidentification error”.
“Far from an isolated error, this is just one of at least eight incidents that HRW identified in which humanitarian organizations and UN agencies communicated to Israeli authorities the GPS coordinates of a convoy or its premises and Israeli forces also attacked the convoy or the shelter without any warning,” the report said. All these entities – he added – agree that “there were no military targets in the area at the time of the attack”.
The other seven cases studied by HRW involved Doctors Without Borders, UNRWA, the International Rescue Committee (ICR), Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP), and the American Near East Refugee Aid Organization (Anera). Some occurred against the houses that housed their workers. This is the case of the attack on a guest house shared between the MAP and the ICR, on January 18, in which an F-16 aircraft, which is manufactured with British parts, dropped a bomb, “possibly from American made,” against the building, the report detailed, citing a UN investigation.
“Israel’s allies must recognize that these attacks that have killed humanitarian workers have happened again and again and must stop,” said Belkis Wille, HRW’s associate director of crisis, conflict and weapons. . For this reason, he called on these countries, especially the US and the UK, to suspend military assistance and arms sales to the Jewish State “while its forces systematically violate the laws of war against civilians” Palestinians with impunity”.
Doctors Without Borders, which, according to the report, was the target of three of the eight attacks mentioned, also denounced in April the impunity with which Israel acts against the oenages.
Attacks on humanitarian aid to Gazans also extend beyond the Strip in the form of blockades by Israeli extremists who either prevent the passage of Gaza-bound aid trucks or destroy their contents. The latest incident, in which more food was spoiled and affected several trucks, was on Monday shortly after passing the Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and near the Israeli town of Shekef.