Summary: Israel criticised after strike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza
Israel’s prime minister has admitted Israeli forces killed seven humanitarian aid workers in Gaza in an airstrike yesterday. Saying “This happens in wartime,” Benjamin Netanyahu described it as “a tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip.”
Three of the seven people killed were British nationals. The UK summoned the Israeli ambassador in London saying Israel must “put in place an effective deconfliction mechanism immediately and urgently to scale up humanitarian access”. The UK’s foreign secretary David Cameron said the deaths were “completely unacceptable”.
The group had been travelling in two armoured vehicles branded with the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity’s logo. WCK said those killed were from the UK, Australia, Poland and Palestine, as well as a US-Canada dual citizen. The charity said it was suspending operations in the Palestinian territory.
US president Joe Biden’s administration said it had been in touch with José Andrés, who founded WCK. Secretary of state Antony Blinken said the US had also spoken directly to the Israeli government about the issue. He told the media “We’ve urged a swift, a thorough and impartial investigation to understand exactly what happened.”
France’s foreign minister Stéphane Séjourné on Tuesday said his country “strongly condemned” the Israeli airstrike, which “nothing can justify”.
Israel has said it plans to open a joint situation room with international groups to enable the coordination of humanitarian aid. WCK on Monday said in its statement about the attack that “Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse.”
Cyprus said on Tuesday afternoon that ships that recently arrived in Gaza were turning back with 240 tonnes of undelivered aid. “At least two-thirds of the assistance is on its way back,” Cyprus’s foreign minister spokesperson, Theodoros Gotsis, told the Guardian.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric has said that the organisation’s secretary-general António Guterres condemns an attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, calling for “utmost restraint”. The attack, which killed at least 11 people, including a senior commander in the al-Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has been widely attributed to Israel. Turkey said the attack was a violation of international law by Israel. Iran’s leaders in Tehran described the targeting of a diplomatic mission late on Monday as unprecedented and promised a harsh response.
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant said Israel would “act everywhere, every day to prevent the force buildup of our enemies. We are in a multi-front war, in the offence and defence. We see evidence of this every day, including in recent days”. He said Israel was acting “to make it clear to everyone who acts against us, all over the Middle East, that the price for acting against Israel will be a heavy price.”
Israel’s delegation will return from Cairo having formulated a new proposal for a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, according to reports.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said the destruction of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza amounted to “ripping the heart out” of the health system of the territory.
Hello again, global live blog readers, it’s around 9.30pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. We are closing this blog now, thanks for following our coverage of the news in the Middle East as it happens. Our latest report on the killing of seven humanitarian aid workers by the Israeli military can be read here.
Here’s where the day stands:
Joe Biden is conveying his condolences to the World Central Kitchen staff killed in Gaza by the Israeli military on Monday night and the White House has expressed that the administration is “outraged” over the tragic killing of the workers by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has called the World Central Kitchen humanitarian workers killed in Gaza “heroes.” Blinken is in Paris, meeting with government ministers in the French capital, and took part in a press conference after a meeting at the ministry of foreign affairs. He has called for “a swift, a thorough and impartial investigation.”
The killing of seven humanitarian workers with the international aid organization World Central Kitchen has been summed up by United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric as “the inevitable result of the way this war is being conducted.”
Israel’s prime minister has admitted Israeli forces killed seven humanitarian aid workers in Gaza in an airstrike yesterday. Saying “This happens in wartime,” Benjamin Netanyahu described it as “a tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip.”
Three of the seven people killed were British nationals. The UK summoned the Israeli ambassador in London saying Israel must “put in place an effective deconfliction mechanism immediately and urgently to scale up humanitarian access”. The UK’s foreign secretary David Cameron said the deaths were “completely unacceptable”.
The group had been travelling in two armoured vehicles branded with the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity’s logo. WCK said those killed were from the UK, Australia, Poland and Palestine, as well as a US-Canada dual citizen. The charity said it was suspending operations in the Palestinian territory.
US president Joe Biden’s administration said it had been in touch with José Andrés, who founded WCK. Secretary of state Antony Blinken said the US had also spoken directly to the Israeli government about the issue. He told the media “We’ve urged a swift, a thorough and impartial investigation to understand exactly what happened.”
France’s foreign ministerStéphane Séjourné on Tuesday said his country “strongly condemned” the Israeli airstrike, which “nothing can justify”.
Israel has said it plans to open a joint situation room with international groups to enable the coordination of humanitarian aid. WCK on Monday said in its statement about the attack that “Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse.”
Cyprus said on Tuesday afternoon that ships that recently arrived in Gaza were turning back with 240 tonnes of undelivered aid. “At least two-thirds of the assistance is on its way back,” Cyprus’s foreign minister spokesperson, Theodoros Gotsis, told the Guardian.
UN spokespersonStéphane Dujarric has said that the organisation’s secretary-general António Guterres condemns an attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, calling for “utmost restraint”. The attack, which killed at least 11 people, including a senior commander in the al-Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has been widely attributed to Israel. Turkey said the attack was a violation of international law by Israel. Iran’s leaders in Tehran described the targeting of a diplomatic mission late on Monday as unprecedented and promised a harsh response.
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant said Israel would “act everywhere, every day to prevent the force buildup of our enemies. We are in a multi-front war, in the offence and defence. We see evidence of this every day, including in recent days”. He said Israel was acting “to make it clear to everyone who acts against us, all over the Middle East, that the price for acting against Israel will be a heavy price.”
Israel’s delegation will return from Cairo having formulated a new proposal for a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, according to reports.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said the destruction of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza amounted to “ripping the heart out” of the health system of the territory.
Over in Cyprus the European Parliament’s visiting president, Roberta Metsola, has said “all resources” must be used to find out how an Israeli airstrike on a humanitarian convoy could ever have occurred.
“We must use all our resources to get answers, to bring in more relief,” said the
The Maltese politician spoke after touring the joint rescue and coordination centre in Larnaca, the Cypriot port that has become the distribution point for aid dispatched via the recently inaugurated maritime route to Gaza.
“Humanitarian organisations like World Central Kitchen must be protected,” he said.
Escorting Metsola, Cypriot president Nikos Christodoulides described the charity as a “crucial partner in sending much-needed assistance” to the Palestinian territory.
“I express our sincere condolences to the WCK and the countries which have lost their citizens, and we call for an immediate and complete investigation,” he said. “The tragic events of last night prove once again that this is not a regional crisis of limited concern or impact. Its effects reverberate across the region.”
Christodoulides said as the closest EU member state to the Middle East, Cyprus had a “moral obligation to ease the suffering of civilians in Gaza” although he stressed the humanitarian sea corridor was not a substitute for aid reaching the besieged coastal strip through land routes or airdrops.
Standing alongside Metsola as he addressed reporters he said:
Your presence here today as president of the European parliament, representing almost 400 million European citizens, is a strong message that Europe and its citizens care deeply about the severely deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, and that they stand behind initiatives to alleviate the crisis.
Despite the fact that US secretary of state Antony Blinken did not formally condemn the strike by the Israeli military that killed seven aid workers with the World Central Kitchen organization, the White House has followed up at the daily press briefing, claiming that its expression of outrage adds up to a condemnation.
National security spokesman John Kirby was asked why the US was not condemning the strike, given that Blinken, speaking at a press conference earlier in Paris, did not do so while his French counterpart did.
Kirby said that by his expressing outrage at the strike, when he spoke from the west wing podium in the press briefing room in Washington moments ago, could be read as condemnation of the strike by the White House.
Kirby said there was no evidence as yet that the Israeli Defense Forces killed the aid workers in Gaza deliberately.
He also said it continued to be the US position that in the Israeli military offensive against Hamas in Gaza in the last five months, Israel has not violated international humanitarian law.
Kirby, in addition, said that the US was not involved “in any way” with the Israeli air strike on Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus in Syria on Monday.
United Nations staff members inspect the carcass 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. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Biden sends "deepest condolences" to aid workers killed
Joe Biden is conveying his condolences to the World Central Kitchen workers killed in Gaza by the Israeli military on Monday night, the White House announced moments ago.
The White House is “outraged” over the tragic killing of the workers by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
At the latest media briefing in the west wing in Washington, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the US president sends his “deepest condolences” over those killed and he is “grieving with the entire World Central Kitchen” team.
Biden acknowledges the “tremendous contribution” that WCK has made to “the people of Gaza and people around the world,” Jean-Pierre said.
Biden wishes to “make clear to Israel that humanitarian workers need to be protected,” she said.
National security spokesman John Kirby, also at the briefing, added that the White House was “outraged by the IDF strike” on people “working to get food to those who need it.” Kirby said the US expects an investigation and “appropriate accountability.”
A Palestinian man on a bicycle passes a damaged vehicle where employees from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to the NGO as the Israeli military said it was conducting a thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this "tragic" incident, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza, Strip April 2, 2024. Photograph: Ahmed Zakot/Reuters
A fresh warning of famine in Gaza comes in the joint World Bank and United Nations report released on Tuesday.
Beyond the structural damage found in Gaza as a result of Israeli bombardment, the report echoes multiple reports in recent weeks signaling that famine is imminent in the besieged Palestinian territory.
More than half of Gaza’s population is on the brink of famine, with the whole population “experiencing acute food insecurity and malnutrition,” the report found, and the Agence France-Presse (AFP) wire says.
An estimated 84 percent of Gaza’s health facilities have been damaged or destroyed, while three quarters of the population have been displaced by the fighting, leaving more than a million people without homes.
The report, created using remote data collection sources, found that Gaza’s water and sanitation system had “nearly collapsed,” and was delivering less than five percent of its pre-war output.
All – 100 percent – of Gaza’s children are out of official school due to the collapse of the education system, while 92 percent of its primary roads were either destroyed or damaged, according to the World Bank.
The new report calls for:
An increase in humanitarian assistance, food aid and food production; the provision of shelter and rapid, cost-effective, and scalable housing solutions for displaced people; and the resumption of essential services.”
Palestinian children wait to receive food distributed by charity organizations, in Deir Al Balah, Gaza on April 01, 2024. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
A lot of Gaza is in ruins as the war on Hamas by Israel approaches the end of its fifth month, following Hamas’s murderous attack on southern Israel on October 7, last year, killing around 1,200 people and taking hostages, more than 100 of whom are still being held in the Palestinian territory by Hamas and other Islamist groups.
Here are some images of the damage in the strip, following the release of a report about that by the World Bank and the UN.
People inspect damage and recover items from their homes following Israeli air strikes on April 02, 2024 in Rafah, southern Gaza. Photograph: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
Palestinians inspect the damage at and near Al-Shifa Hospital after the Israeli army withdrew from it following a two-week military operation, in Gaza City, 01 April 2024. Photograph: Mohamed Hajjar/EPA
And Rafah.
Two boys sit amongst the rubble as people inspect damage and recover items from their homes following Israeli air strikes on April 02, 2024 in Rafah, Gaza. Despite warnings from US president Joe Biden, Israeli forces have targeted the city of Rafah which is currently home to an estimated million Palestinian refugees. Photograph: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
The cost of damage to Gaza’s critical infrastructure between October and January is estimated at about US$18.5bn, according to a joint World Bank and the United Nations report released on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
This is equivalent to 97 percent of the combined economic output of the West Bank and Gaza in 2022, the World Bank said in its interim damage assessment, which covers the period between the onset of the conflict on October 7 and the end of January.
Palestinians inspect the damages at Al Shifa Hospital after Israeli forces withdrew from the hospital and the area around it following a two-week operation, in Gaza City April 2, 2024. Photograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
Agence France-Presse (AFP) adds that the report, produced with the United Nations and the European Union, found structural damage affected “every sector of the economy,” with more than 70 percent of the estimated costs due to the destruction of housing.
The Israeli military’s heavy aerial bombardment in the aftermath of the attack, and its ongoing ground operations inside Gaza, have reduced many areas of the territory to rubble, creating an estimated 26 million tons of debris.
For several sectors, the rate of damage appears to be leveling off as few assets remain intact,” the Bank said.
Killed Gaza aid workers were 'heroes', says US secretary of state Blinken
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has called the World Central Kitchen humanitarian workers killed in Gaza “heroes.”
Blinken is in Paris, meeting with government ministers in the French capital, and took part in a press conference after a meeting at the ministry of foreign affairs.
Blinken has called for “a swift, a thorough and impartial investigation” into the killings of the seven workers on Monday night by Israeli forces, Reuters reported.
These people are heroes, they run into the fire, not away from it. We shouldn’t have a situation where people who are simply trying to help their fellow human beings are themselves at grave risk.”
But Blinken stopped short of directly condemning the attack, unlike his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne.
Biden faces pressure from foreign partners, human rights groups and some of his fellow Democrats in Congress to impose conditions on arms transfers to rein in Israel’s offensive in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Hours before the Israeli strike on WCK workers on Monday, Reuters reported that the Biden administration was considering proceeding with an $18bn arms transfer package to Israel.
Asked if incidents like the killing of WCK workers made the United States think twice about its “flood of weapons” to Israel, Blinken did not address the specific question but said all US arms transfers happened consistent to policy requirements.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken holds a joint press conference with French foreign minister after their meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris on April 2, 2024. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/AFP/Getty Images
Senior UN aid official Sigrid Kaag met with World Central Kitchen (WCK) staff just hours before they were killed, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
Let humanitarian workers do their job,” Dujarric said was his message to the Israeli government.
Seven aid workers trying to deliver much-needed food to Gaza were killed in an Israeli strike in the city of Deir al-Balah on Monday night.
The Israeli government confirmed its military had carried out “an unintended strike”, hours after WCK, an international charity that has brought hundreds of tonnes of food aid into Gaza, said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were responsible.
Killing of World Central Kitchen workers "inevitable result" of how this war is conducted - UN
The killing of seven humanitarian workers with the international aid organization World Central Kitchen has been summed up by United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric as “the inevitable result of the way this war is being conducted,” Reuters reports.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid is reportedly going to make a visit to Washington DC next week.
There isn’t much detail about but Lapid is the main political rival to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and this past weekend he called the current crisis “an existential moment” for Israel and said he’d “never been more worried in my life” for the state.
It’s unclear who he plans to meet in the US capital, if the trip is confirmed.
Opposition Leader @yairlapid will be flying to Washington next week.
A source in his office tells me that the focus of the visit is "strengthening the Israel-US strategic relationship, bringing the hostages back home and Israel's role in the region."
The news comes amid the absence of any news confirming if or when the Israeli high-level government delegation that had intended to come for talks in Washington about Rafah, requested by Joe Biden but later was called off by Netanayahu, will be back on.
Summary: Israel criticised after strike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza
Israel’s prime minister has admitted Israeli forces killed seven humanitarian aid workers in Gaza in an airstrike yesterday. Saying “This happens in wartime,” Benjamin Netanyahu described it as “a tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip.”
Three of the seven people killed were British nationals. The UK summoned the Israeli ambassador in London saying Israel must “put in place an effective deconfliction mechanism immediately and urgently to scale up humanitarian access”. The UK’s foreign secretary David Cameron said the deaths were “completely unacceptable”.
The group had been travelling in two armoured vehicles branded with the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity’s logo. WCK said those killed were from the UK, Australia, Poland and Palestine, as well as a US-Canada dual citizen. The charity said it was suspending operations in the Palestinian territory.
US president Joe Biden’s administration said it had been in touch with José Andrés, who founded WCK. Secretary of state Antony Blinken said the US had also spoken directly to the Israeli government about the issue. He told the media “We’ve urged a swift, a thorough and impartial investigation to understand exactly what happened.”
France’s foreign minister Stéphane Séjourné on Tuesday said his country “strongly condemned” the Israeli airstrike, which “nothing can justify”.
Israel has said it plans to open a joint situation room with international groups to enable the coordination of humanitarian aid. WCK on Monday said in its statement about the attack that “Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse.”
Cyprus said on Tuesday afternoon that ships that recently arrived in Gaza were turning back with 240 tonnes of undelivered aid. “At least two-thirds of the assistance is on its way back,” Cyprus’s foreign minister spokesperson, Theodoros Gotsis, told the Guardian.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric has said that the organisation’s secretary-general António Guterres condemns an attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, calling for “utmost restraint”. The attack, which killed at least 11 people, including a senior commander in the al-Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has been widely attributed to Israel. Turkey said the attack was a violation of international law by Israel. Iran’s leaders in Tehran described the targeting of a diplomatic mission late on Monday as unprecedented and promised a harsh response.
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant said Israel would “act everywhere, every day to prevent the force buildup of our enemies. We are in a multi-front war, in the offence and defence. We see evidence of this every day, including in recent days”. He said Israel was acting “to make it clear to everyone who acts against us, all over the Middle East, that the price for acting against Israel will be a heavy price.”
Israel’s delegation will return from Cairo having formulated a new proposal for a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, according to reports.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said the destruction of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza amounted to “ripping the heart out” of the health system of the territory.
CNN is reporting that a senior Biden administration official told the news network that the US administration had been in touch with World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés.
It reports “These communications began when the US first learned of the deadly incident around 6pm ET last night and has continued overnight and this morning, the official said.”
Earlier secretary of state Antony Blinken said the US had spoken directly with the Israeli government about the strike which killed seven humanitarian aid workers.
