World Central Kitchen vehicle targeted by Israel in Gaza. Photo: AFP.
The Israeli army has killed multiple aid workers after being notified of their travel routes
The UN said on 14 May that the Israeli military was made aware of a travel route of a UN vehicle carrying international staff member Waibhav Anil Kale, 46, who was killed by gunfire Monday while traveling in Gaza.
The statement contradicted earlier claims by the Israeli military its forces “had not been made aware of the route of the vehicle.” In an apparent effort to dismiss responsibility for the killing, the army stated that its initial inquiry found “that the vehicle was hit in an area declared an active combat zone.”
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Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the secretary general, confirmed that Kale, an Indian national, was the first international UN employee to be killed since the beginning of the war on 7 October. He added “we inform the Israeli side of the movement of all our convoys. They are all clearly marked U.N. vehicles.”
Kale, who was married with two teenage children, had been traveling in a clearly marked UN vehicle to the European Hospital in Rafah, said people familiar with the incident speaking with the Washington Post.
A Human Rights Watch report released Tuesday said Israeli forces have conducted at least eight strikes on aid worker convoys and premises since October, even after workers provided their coordinates to the Israeli military to ensure their protection.
Palestinians are fleeing both northern and southern Gaza at the same time as Israel launches indiscriminate attacks on both areas by land, sea and air.
On May 13, Israeli forces killed an international UN worker in Rafah. pic.twitter.com/N2p2fcqUEY
— AJ+ (@ajplus) May 13, 2024
More than 250 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the October 7 assault in Israel, according to the UN.
Israel’s attack on April 1 on the World Central Kitchen convoy, which killed seven foreign aid workers, was widely covered in the media and condemned internationally.
Attacks that have killed Palestinians working for international aid organizations have garnered less attention and outrage.
Human Rights Watch reports that in addition to killing aid workers from World Central Kitchen, Israeli forces have killed aid workers from UNRWA, Doctors without Borders (MSF), International Rescue Committee (IRC), Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), American Near East Refugee Aid Organization (Anera).
Israel’s targeting of aid workers is part of a broader campaign to limit aid to Palestinians in Gaza as part of its siege of the enclave. In December, Human Rights Watch released a report documenting Israel’s use of “starvation as a weapon of war.”
