A mission of mercy, then a fatal blow: How Israeli missiles hit Gaza aid convoy

Hours after sunset, eight aid trucks, cobbled together from the vast amounts of debris left across Gaza by months of war, rolled out of a makeshift dock.

The trucks were escorted by three vehicles carrying relief workers from World Central Kitchen, a relief organization that arranges bulk food shipments. All seven aid workers were wearing body armor. The cars were marked with the group’s logo, a colorful frying pan, including on their roofs.

After an arduous crawl along a well-worn road, mission accomplished. The fleet delivers the precious cargo to the warehouse, ready to go home.

There was nothing that night except a little moonlight. The road was dark except for a few occasional lights spilling from buildings with generators.

A few minutes after 10 p.m., the convoy headed south along Rashid Street, Gaza’s coastal highway.

A little over an hour later, the first missile hit us.

Soon after, all seven rescuers died.

Important Efforts to Avoid Famine

The April 1 attacks began months ago, when aid groups were desperately looking for ways to feed millions of people but were unable to regularly deliver food. On October 7, Hamas militants launched an attack, triggering the war, and within hours, Gaza was blockaded by Israeli forces. Since then, more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 80 percent of the enclave’s 2.3 million people have been displaced.

Hunger has become commonplace. United Nations officials have warned that famine is increasingly likely in war-torn northern Gaza.

As the situation becomes increasingly dire and deliveries are restricted at Gaza’s land crossings with Israel and Egypt, World Central Kitchen is the first to try delivering aid by sea.

Founded in 2010 by celebrity chef José Andrés, the relief organization has worked in Haiti and Ukraine, sending relief teams to quickly deliver large-scale meals in conflict zones and after natural disasters. The group prides itself on serving food that caters to local tastes.

Its first ship arrived in mid-March, delivering 200 tons of food, water and other aid in coordination with Israel.

The organization said three ships and a barge left Cyprus on March 30, carrying enough rice, pasta, flour, canned vegetables and other supplies to prepare more than 1 million meals.

Two days later, some of the supplies were ready to be trucked to central Gaza.

April 1, 10 p.m.

The World Central Kitchen fleet of eight trucks left the dock and turned south, heading along the coast to a warehouse about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away.

The World Central Kitchen team travels in two armored vehicles and a third unarmored vehicle. These include Palestinian driver and translator Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, a young businessman whose mother hopes to find him a wife; security consultant Yad Jacob Flickinger, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, was saving money to build a house in Costa Rica where he and his girlfriend could raise their 18-month-old son.

They include three British military veterans, an Australian beloved for his warm embrace and relentless work ethic, and a man the group calls “a builder, a plumber, a welder, an electrician, an engineer, a boss, a confidant.” , friends and teammates” Polish volunteers.

The team developed a “deconfliction” plan with the Israeli army in advance so the military knew when they would travel and what route to take.

Aid organizations use complex systems to keep their teams safe. Typically, a military official said, a pre-plan is sent to COGAT, the Israeli defense agency responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, which then shares it with the Israeli military. The official said aid groups can communicate with the military in real time as supplies are delivered. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with Army briefing rules.

World Food Kitchen staff carry GPS transmitters to track their locations, said an organization employee who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Many aid workers expressed concerns about the deconfliction system.

“It’s not working very well,” said Chris Skopek, a Washington-based official at the aid group Project Hope, citing poor communication and coordination. “If it doesn’t work well, people will die.”

10:28 pm

A few miles from the dock things started to go wrong.

An Israeli officer watching from a drone believed a Hamas gunman climbed on top of a truck and fired into the air.

Gunmen are part of daily life in Gaza, which has been ruled by Hamas since 2007. They may be Hamas fighters, Hamas-supervised police or privately hired guards.

Aid officials say some aid groups hire armed guards, often plainclothes who wield guns or large sticks, to fight off hungry Palestinians trying to snatch supplies.

The employee said World Central Kitchen sometimes uses armed guards, but it was unclear whether they were employed on the April 1 convoy. The employee and other aid officials insisted their guards were not affiliated with Hamas or its militant ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but did not elaborate on the guards’ affiliations. Despite such denials, it is unlikely that anyone riding in the rescue truck did not have the tacit approval of Hamas.

Israeli military spokesman Major Neil Dinard said soldiers were trying to distinguish between armed security personnel and Hamas militants when identifying targets. He said the possibility that the armed men accompanying the World Central Kitchen convoy could be security guards could not be ruled out.

10:46 pm

Fuzzy aerial footage shown to reporters by the Israeli military showed people swarming as the convoy arrived at the World Central Kitchen warehouse in the city of Deir al-Balah. The military said two to four of the men were armed, but that was not clear from aerial footage shown to reporters.

10:55pm

The truck remained at the warehouse, but three World Central Kitchen vehicles began traveling south to transport workers to their residences. Another vehicle joining the convoy – which the Israelis said contained the gunman – headed north towards another warehouse.

Planning messages from World Central Kitchen make it clear that aid workers will not stay on trucks but will continue on in cars.

But Israeli officials said soldiers monitoring the convoy did not read the messages. Then, an Israeli officer believed he saw someone walking into a World Central Kitchen vehicle with a gun.

“The mentality was that the humanitarian mission was over and they were tracking a Hamas vehicle with at least one suspected gunman,” said Yoav Har-Evan, a retired general who led the investigation into the attack.

Because of darkness, Israeli officials said they could not see the World Central Kitchen logo on the roof of the car.

11:09 pm

The first missile hit an armored vehicle traveling along the coastal road. Rescuers fled the damaged vehicle and headed for another armored vehicle, which Israel hit two minutes later.

The survivors piled into the third car. It also hit quickly.

Abdel Razzaq Abutaha, the brother of the slain driver, said that after the explosion, other aides called him and asked him to check on his brother.

He called his brother’s phone several times. Eventually a man answered the call and said he found the phone about 200 meters (656 feet) from one of the bombed-out cars.

“Everyone in the car was killed,” the man told Abdul Razak.

Abdel Razzaq confident his brother’s job will be safe

“It is an American international agency with the highest level of coordination,” he said. “What’s there to be afraid of?”

aftermath

As the sun rose the next morning, the charred husks of three vehicles were scattered along a mile or so of Al Rashid Street.

Israel soon admitted to accidentally killing the rescuers and launched an investigation.

“This is a tragedy,” military spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari told reporters. “This should not have happened. We will make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

On Friday, Israel said it had fired two officers and reprimanded three others, saying they mishandled key information and violated the army’s rules of engagement, which require multiple reasons to identify a target.

After the deadly attack, Israel and COGAT set up a special “war room” where COGAT and military officials sat together to streamline the coordination process.

Israel’s pledge has done little to quell growing international anger over its offensive.

According to the United Nations, more than 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began, at least 30 of them in the line of duty. Many aid workers noted that the convoy strike was notable only because six of the victims were not Palestinians.

In many ways, aid workers are a difficult group to define. Some are experts who make a good living running from disaster to disaster. Some are volunteers looking for a way to do good. Some do it out of ambition, some out of faith.

But in Gaza, everyone understands the risks.

John Flickinger’s son Jacob is a Canadian military veteran and a member of the team’s safety team.

“He entered Gaza voluntarily and he was of sound mind,” Flickinger told The Associated Press. “We discussed that it was a chaotic situation.”

While World Central Kitchen and some other aid groups suspended operations in Gaza after the attacks, many of the largest organizations, including Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam International, have barely slowed down.

Ruth James, Oxfam GB’s regional humanitarian coordinator, said the convoy attack was unfortunately “not beyond our expectations”. Aside from one canceled trip, Oxfam staff simply kept working.

“What keeps them going?” she asked. “I can only guess.”