Germany, Poland Say Israel Must Investigate Strike On Aid Workers

People gather around the remains of a car used by US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, that was hit by an Israeli strike the previous day in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 2, 2024. (AFP)
People gather around the remains of a car used by US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, that was hit by an Israeli strike the previous day in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 2, 2024. (AFP)
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Germany, Poland Say Israel Must Investigate Strike On Aid Workers

People gather around the remains of a car used by US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, that was hit by an Israeli strike the previous day in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 2, 2024. (AFP)
People gather around the remains of a car used by US-based aid group World Central Kitchen, that was hit by an Israeli strike the previous day in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 2, 2024. (AFP)

Germany on Tuesday urged Israel to carry out a full probe into a strike in the Gaza Strip that killed seven staff from US-based charity World Central Kitchen.

"The Israeli government must investigate this terrible incident quickly and thoroughly," Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Also, Poland's deputy foreign minister Andrzej Szejna said that Israel should "compensate" the families of the seven aid workers, including a Polish citizen, killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza.

"The authorities should think about who should be held criminally responsible for pressing a certain button and how to compensate the families of the victims -- even if it's impossible to do so with money," Szejna told Radio Zet.

Israel's army acknowledged on Wednesday it committed a "grave mistake" when it killed seven aid workers from the US charity in an airstrike in Gaza.

"This incident was a grave mistake," Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said in a video message posted on social media platform X.

He blamed "a misidentification -- at night during a war in very complex conditions".

"It shouldn't have happened," he added.

Seven staff from US-based food aid charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed when a strike hit their convoy in the Gazan town of Deir al-Balah on Monday.

According to the organization, those killed included Australian, British, Palestinian, Polish and US-Canadian staff.

Since the start of the war, the NGO has been involved in humanitarian operations in Gaza, and was one of two groups spearheading efforts to deliver food aid arriving by sea from Cyprus.

The group said it was suspending its operations in the region following the strike.



UK’s Heathrow Defends Decision to Shut Airport Amid Blame Game 

A girl holds a balloon as people walk at Terminal 2 of the Heathrow International Airport, a day after a fire at a nearby electrical substation wiped out the power at the airport, near London, Britain, March 22, 2025. (Reuters)
A girl holds a balloon as people walk at Terminal 2 of the Heathrow International Airport, a day after a fire at a nearby electrical substation wiped out the power at the airport, near London, Britain, March 22, 2025. (Reuters)
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UK’s Heathrow Defends Decision to Shut Airport Amid Blame Game 

A girl holds a balloon as people walk at Terminal 2 of the Heathrow International Airport, a day after a fire at a nearby electrical substation wiped out the power at the airport, near London, Britain, March 22, 2025. (Reuters)
A girl holds a balloon as people walk at Terminal 2 of the Heathrow International Airport, a day after a fire at a nearby electrical substation wiped out the power at the airport, near London, Britain, March 22, 2025. (Reuters)

Britain's Heathrow defended its decision to shut down operations at Europe's busiest airport last Friday as the blame game intensified over an 18-hour closure which cost airlines tens of millions of pounds and stranded thousands of passengers.

As questions mounted over how such a critical part of Britain's infrastructure could fail and whether all Heathrow's four terminals needed to shut, both National Grid and Heathrow agreed that the failure of the transformer was an unprecedented event.

But the airport was forced to defend its closure after the boss of National Grid told the Financial Times that the electricity transmission network remained capable of providing power to the airport throughout the crisis.

Heathrow said the fire at a nearby substation late on Thursday interrupted its operations, forcing it to shut while it reconfigured systems and switched to power from an alternative substation.

"Hundreds of critical systems across the airport were required to be safely powered down and then safely and systematically rebooted," a Heathrow spokesperson said.

"Given Heathrow's size and operational complexity, safely restarting operations after a disruption of this magnitude was a significant challenge."

John Pettigrew, the CEO of National Grid, said there were two other substations able to provide power to Heathrow, showing that the grid was resilient.

"Two substations were always available for the distribution network companies and Heathrow to take power," he told the FT.

While airlines such as British Airways, the worse affected, add up the bill for the closure, the government and Heathrow have both commissioned reviews into what happened.

"It's really important that we do learn the lessons from this, and that's why I think those two reviews...are going to be really critical," Transport Minister Heidi Alexander told Sky News on Monday.

Asked on LBC Radio about whether she had confidence in Heathrow's CEO Thomas Woldbye, Alexander said she wanted to see the results of the reviews.