Jose Andres, the celebrity chef told Reuters that the Israeli occupation attack that killed the seven workers of World Central Kitchen was a “systematically, car by car” attack. In the video message, Andres said the organisation that he founded had clear communication with the Israeli occupation force.
He said the occupation knew about his aid workers’ movement. He said, “this was not just a bad luck situation where ‘oops’ we dropped a bomb in the wrong place…this was over a 1.5,1.8 km, with a very defined humanitarian convoy that had signs in the top in the roof, a very colourful logo that we are obviously very proud of”. He said it was “very clear who we are and what we do”.
Andres called for investigations into the matter by US government and by the home country of every aid worker that was killed. He said the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) were targeting them on the deconflicting zone, in an area controlled by the IDF itself, and know that it was their teams moving on the road with three cars.
The World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed when their convoy was hit after they oversaw the unloading of 100 tons of food brought to Gaza via maritime route. The Israeli occupation voiced “severe sorrow” over the incident and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister called the attack unintentional.
Andres rejected the Israeli claim of unintentional attack and said that there may have been more than three strikes on the aid convoy.
When Reuters asked for comment on Andres’ remarks, an Israeli military spokesperson referred to the prior comments by the Herzi Halevi, the head of the staff, who called the incident a grave mistake, and said that it “was not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers”.
According to United Nations, at least 196 aid workers were killed by the Israeli bombing in Gaza since October 7th.
The WCK founder said he lost the contact with the group and came to know about their death after seeing images of their bodies. He said the Israeli occupation attacked the organization’s first car, from which they were able to escape, and moved to second car, which was also attacked, forcing them to seek shelter in the third car. The aid workers tried to communicate and make clear who they were, said Andres and added that the IDF knew the aid workers were in the area which they were controlled.
Jose Andres condemned the war in whole. He said “this it seems is a war against humanity itself. And you can never win that war. Because humanity eventually will always prevail”.