After Israel's killing of WCK aid workers, fears grip Palestinians in Gaza of aid cuts

A state of despair has spread among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as Israel's war continues in the besieged coastal enclave for the sixth month in a row and the failure of any diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire. 

The situation is even worse now after Israeli warplanes killed seven members of the international relief organisation World Central Kitchen (WCK) with reportedly three separate strikes on their aid convoy along the coastal road of Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip. 

Both WCK's founder, José Andrés, and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca P. Albanese, have both described the attack by the Israeli army as "deliberate". 

Speaking to The New Arab, several Palestinians expressed fear that Israel will persist with its policy of willfully starving them by intimidating international relief organisations and thus preventing any attempts to help.

In separate statements, the Palestinians who spoke with TNA believe that Israel wanted to convey a message to the international community and its relief institutions that "no party or person is allowed to save the Palestinians from the death it imposes on them."

On Tuesday, Palestinian security and medical sources said that seven bodies were transferred to al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip following the deadly attack.

The government media office in Gaza said the team included local and foreign nationalities. It was on its way to Deir al-Balah to inspect the port that would receive a second ship from Cyprus with humanitarian aid for its residents.

"However, the Israeli occupation wants to kill everyone who tries to help the Palestinians, even those foreigners who came from distant countries to fulfil their humanitarian duty and help our bereaved people," Ismail Thawabta, the director of the government media office in Gaza, remarked to TNA. 

"The Israeli occupation only understands the language of blood in Gaza, and it targets everything in the Gaza Strip without any mercy and any consideration (...) Unfortunately, the United States helps this brutal occupation," Thawabta added. 

The official stressed that the US is "an essential partner" in crimes committed by the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip.

For its part, the WCK announced that it lost seven of its employees during an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah. 

The organisation also said that its workers who were killed were British, Polish, Australians, as well as Palestinians, as well as a dual citizen of the US and Canada.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu officially announced that the Israeli army bombed "innocent people," describing the bombing as "a tragic and unintentional incident".

"This happens in war, and we are verifying this until the end. We are still in contact with governments, and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again," he added. 

In response, the WCK temporarily stopped working in the Gaza Strip until a final decision was made. ANERA, another aid organisation, and the UAE have also suspended work in the besieged coastal enclave. 

Nahil Al-Barbari, a displaced Palestinian in Mawasi Khan Yunis, fears that the end of the WCK's work will deprive her seven children of getting enough meals daily.

"For the past two weeks, we have been eating food daily, and my children were happy about it, but today, it seems that we will return to want and need, while we do not have enough money to buy the basic requirements for our children," the 46-year-old mother of seven said to TNA. 

According to civil society organisations, the WCK provided services to half of the Gaza Strip's population after UNRWA and works daily to provide cooked food and food aid to all governorates of the Strip.

Salim Abu Salim, a Palestinian resident of Deir al-Balah, believes that targeting relief crews has political dimensions, and Israel wants to deliver a clear message to the entire world (which stands idly by) that no one can force it to do anything.

"The conditions in the Gaza Strip are catastrophic, and Israel insists on continuing to make it unviable to force the residents of the Gaza Strip to emigrate (whether voluntarily or even compulsorily) to empty it of them and begin its new settlement project for the Strip," Abu Salim said to TNA. 

Since 7 October, at least 32,975 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army, while about 75,577  others were wounded, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza. Most of the dead and wounded were women and children. 

The WCK staff were not the only ones killed in the Gaza Strip; more than 196 additional aid workers have been killed by Israel in Gaza since October, according to the US-funded Aid Worker Database, an organisation dedicated to recording significant incidents of violence against relief personnel people. 

Most of those killed by Israel during these six months were working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which runs the most extensive aid operation in Gaza.