Enlarge image
US President Joe Biden on March 29th on the way to Camp David
Photo: Brendan Smialowski / AFP
Seven people are dead, even though they only wanted to help: The deaths of several international aid workers in the Gaza Strip have caused horror around the world. US President Joe Biden released a written statement on Tuesday saying he was “outraged and heartbroken.” The United States has repeatedly called on Israel to decouple military operations against the Islamist Hamas from humanitarian operations in order to avoid civilian casualties.
“Israel has not done enough to protect the aid workers who are trying to provide the civilian population with urgently needed aid,” said Biden. This is one of the main reasons why distributing humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip is so difficult. “Incidents like yesterday simply shouldn’t happen,” Biden’s statement continued. »What is even more tragic is that this is not an isolated case. This conflict is one of the worst in recent history in terms of the number of aid workers killed.
According to the US government, more than 200 aid workers have died in the Israel-Gaza war. Israel must quickly investigate the incident and publish the results, Biden said. Those responsible must be held accountable.
US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the US government had already informed the Israeli authorities that it expected an investigation into the incident. The employees of aid organizations are heroes: “They run into the fire, not away from it. They showcase the best that humanity truly has to offer when the going gets tough. They need to be protected.”
World Central Kitchen (WCK) employees were traveling in clearly marked cars when they came under fire. The employees included citizens of the United States, Poland, Australia and Great Britain.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has always rejected international criticism of his country's conduct of the war against Hamas, said on Tuesday evening that Israel deeply regrets the tragic incident. The Israeli military called the attack a "serious mistake."
Lieutenant General Herzl Halevi, chief of staff of the Israeli military, says there has already been a preliminary investigation: "The attack was not carried out with the intention of harming the WCK helpers. It was a mistake that followed a misidentification - at night during a war under very complex conditions. That shouldn't have happened." An independent committee will thoroughly investigate the incident and complete a report "in the next few days." The army will learn from the conclusions "and implement them immediately," he promised.
Meanwhile, World Central Kitchen announced that it would cease operations in the region. A second aid organization, American Near East Refugee Aid, joined. “Everyone feels threatened now,” the New York Times quotes Michael Capponi, the founder of the aid organization Global Empowerment Mission.
Soraya Ali, spokeswoman for the organization Save the Children, spoke of a “nightmare come true for us.” Tess Ingram, spokeswoman for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told the New York Times that she hoped the incident would "make the world realize that what is happening here is not OK."
Israel risks ending up without a partner to provide and deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the Times of Israel quoted a US government official as saying.
vet/dpa