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Chef Jose Andres Says Israel Targeted His Aid Workers ‘Systematically, Car by Car’

A destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)
A destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)
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Chef Jose Andres Says Israel Targeted His Aid Workers ‘Systematically, Car by Car’

A destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)
A destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 02 April 2024. (EPA)

Celebrity chef Jose Andres told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that an Israeli attack that killed seven of his food aid workers in Gaza had targeted them "systematically, car by car."

Speaking in a video interview, Andres said the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity group he founded had clear communication with the Israeli military, which he said knew his aid workers' movements.

This was not a "bad luck situation where, 'oops,' we dropped the bomb in the wrong place," Andres said. "Even if we were not in coordination with the (Israel Defense Forces), no democratic country and no military can be targeting civilians and humanitarians."

The aid workers were killed when their convoy was hit shortly after they oversaw the unloading of 100 tons of food brought to Gaza by sea. Israel's military expressed "severe sorrow" over the incident and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it unintentional.

Andres said he was supposed to be in Gaza with his team but for different reasons "wasn't able to go back again to Gaza."

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Arab World

Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.