{"id":15287,"date":"2024-04-04T05:46:57","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T12:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=15287"},"modified":"2024-04-04T05:46:57","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T12:46:57","slug":"us-defence-secretary-rebukes-israel-over-killing-of-aid-workers-in-gaza-financial-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=15287","title":{"rendered":"“US defence secretary rebukes Israel over killing of aid workers in Gaza”, Financial Times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lloyd Austin warns strike highlights dangers of Israeli plan to attack Rafah<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guy Chazan\u00a0in Jerusalem, 4 April 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin has rebuked Israel over the killing of seven aid workers in Gaza<\/a>, warning that it highlighted the dangers of Israel\u2019s intention to attack the town of Rafah, where more than 1mn civilians are sheltering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pentagon\u2019s description of Wednesday\u2019s call between Austin and his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant said the deaths of the World Central Kitchen workers \u201creinforced the expressed concern over a potential Israeli military operation in Rafah, specifically focusing on the need to ensure the evacuation of Palestinian civilians and the flow of humanitarian aid\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel has faced widespread international condemnation over the deaths of the humanitarian workers, with US President Joe Biden saying he was \u201coutraged and heartbroken\u201d by the killings. Israel has described it as a \u201ctragic incident\u201d, which was \u201cunintentional\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the victims was a dual US-Canadian citizen, while the others were British, Polish, Australian and Palestinian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austin is the first senior western official to make a connection between the strike on the WCK convoy and Israel\u2019s plans to attack Rafah, despite US and UN pleas not to mount a major offensive on the town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel cannot achieve its goal of eliminating Hamas unless it tackles the four remaining Hamas battalions believed to be in Rafah. He has told his military to draw up a \u201ccombined plan for evacuating the population and destroying the battalions\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But US and UN officials have warned that a major offensive in the south Gazan town would be a \u201cdisaster\u201d. More than 1mn people are sheltering in often abject conditions in Rafah, having been forced from their homes in other parts of the enclave by Israeli military action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Pentagon statement said that in his call with Gallant, Austin \u201cexpressed his outrage\u201d at the Israeli strike on the WCK convoy, placing it in the context of \u201crepeated co-ordination failures with foreign aid groups\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He \u201cstressed the need to immediately take concrete steps to protect aid workers and Palestinian civilians in Gaza\u201d and urged Gallant to conduct a \u201cswift and transparent investigation\u201d and to \u201chold those responsible to account\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also said the \u201ctragedy makes it more difficult to flood the zone with humanitarian assistance, as Israeli officials have stated they seek to do\u201d. He called for a rapid increase of aid into Gaza, particularly to communities in the north of the strip \u201cthat are at risk of famine\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WCK workers were killed when their convoy was hit shortly after they oversaw the unloading of 100 tonnes of food brought to Gaza by sea. Jos\u00e9 Andr\u00e9s, the celebrity chef who founded and runs WCK, told Reuters in an interview that the Israeli attack had targeted them \u201csystematically, car by car\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said WCK had clear communication with the Israeli military, which he said knew his aid workers\u2019 movements. \u201cThis was not just a bad luck situation where \u2018oops\u2019 we dropped the bomb in the wrong place,\u201d Andr\u00e9s said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven if we were not in co-ordination with the (Israel Defense Forces), no democratic country and no military can be targeting civilians and humanitarians,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to an Israeli statement, Gallant expressed \u201csorrow and condolences\u201d to all those affected by the strike, and \u201cemphasised his commitment to working closely with partner countries and organisations to facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He assured Austin that Israel was conducting a \u201cthorough and transparent investigation\u201d into the strike, and said \u201clessons will be implemented by the defence establishment\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recommended Israel-Hamas war Joe Biden says Israel \u2018has not done enough\u2019 to protect aid workers and civilians in Gaza Israel launched its offensive after Hamas militants stormed into Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage, according to Israeli officials. Israeli\u2019s assault on Gaza has killed more than 32,000 people, according to Palestinian officials, as well as displacing about 1.7mn of the enclave\u2019s 2.3mn population. Israeli bombardments have rendered huge swaths of the enclave uninhabitable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number of international aid agencies, including American Near East Refugee Aid, have joined WCK in suspending their humanitarian operations in Gaza in the wake of the Israeli strike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pullback is a further blow to Gaza\u2019s 2.2mn people, who have relied solely on aid for more than six months in conditions that humanitarian organisations describe as catastrophic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lloyd Austin warns strike highlights dangers of Israeli plan to attack Rafah Guy Chazan\u00a0in Jerusalem, 4 April 2024 US defence secretary Lloyd Austin has rebuked Israel over the killing of seven aid workers in Gaza, warning that it highlighted the dangers of Israel\u2019s intention to attack the town of Rafah, where more than 1mn civilians […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15287"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15288,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15287\/revisions\/15288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}