Israel's attack on World Central Kitchen is part of its cynical war strategy
No matter how Israel's military operations in Gaza have been spun since 7 October, its latest attack on the aid group World Central Kitchen (WCK) on 1 April leaves no doubt that this is a war being waged against all life in the besieged strip.
Whether it is the civilians who desperately need help or the aid workers who are desperately trying to provide this help, they all seem to be in danger.
A day after the bombing of the WCK convoy, which killed its entire operations team in Gaza, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz claimed that the strikes were deliberate, based on incorrect intelligence that an armed Hamas combatant was present.
Since then, WCK founder Jose Andres has told reporters that Israel targeted his seven staff members "systematically, car by car".
Even if Israel's narrative, questionable as it may be, were true - and for which its leaders apologised earlier this week - it still proves, as many of us have long suspected, that this war is being conducted with the goal of "victory at all costs".
And it is ultimately civilians who bear such costs as no death seems too unconscionable - whether it is aid workers, journalists, health professionals or children, who are at best, collateral damage, or at worst, targets themselves.
A deliberate tactic
While the attacks on the WCK are being portrayed as a mistake, we have seen around 200 aid workers killed in six short months. We have recently lost colleagues from American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera), which, along with WCK, was the largest NGO to provide hot food to starving Palestinians, and Unrwa, who have been victims of this war.
Even if we are to believe that every single one of the aid workers killed was an accident, the many other attacks against the aid community cannot be ignored
International laws and conventions seem to offer aid workers little protection in the reality of the brutal assault on all life in Gaza.
Even if we are to believe that every single one of the aid workers killed was an accident and not a deliberate attack, the many other attacks against the aid community cannot be ignored.
Whether it is the baseless smears against Unrwa in order to defund it or locking up aid workers on spurious terrorism charges without providing any evidence, it all serves a purpose - to shrink the humanitarian space in Gaza.
By attacking NGOs distributing aid, hospitals and journalists, Israel's creation of an environment too dangerous to operate in appears to be its primary goal. Following the attack on WCK, ships carrying undelivered aid to Gaza immediately turned back with operations suspended.
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Israeli forces are making conditions too dangerous to provide any help or assistance to people in Gaza, rendering it uninhabitable for Palestinians, and securing Israel's victory as civilians pay the ultimate price.
My organisation, Action For Humanity, and its subsidiary Syria Relief, know this all too well.
In Syria, we faced similar conditions, where the 13-year conflict saw 336 aid workers killed. My organisation alone lost six colleagues due to a "victory at any cost" approach to waging war.
Waning support
I sense that the conversation is moving from whether western governments should revoke their support to how western governments should revoke their support for Israel.
A poll of the UK public, commissioned by Action For Humanity and conducted by YouGov, found that 59 percent of the public believes that the Israeli military is violating human rights in Gaza - and this was before the direct attack on the WCK aid workers, which included three British nationals.
This attack has rightly triggered global condemnation, but it is worrying that such outrage may be related to the nationalities of those tragically killed. Innocent Palestinians have been killed every minute over the course of the past six months amid a deafening silence from western governments.
The killing of every aid worker should be universally condemned for the war crime that it certainly is, as should the targeting of every civilian.
All war crimes are thus and we should not make distinctions or equivocations based on nationality, race, ethnicity or profession. Everything must be done to stop the war crimes and this genocidal war immediately.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Othman Moqbel is a British-Palestinian non-profit executive. He is currently CEO of Action For Humanity, the parent charity of Syria Relief, the largest Syria-focused NGO in the UK. He was formerly a trustee of ACEVO, Charity Futures. and was CEO of Human Appeal from 2010 to 2017. In 2015 he won ACEVO fellowship award as one of best CEO and In 2017, Othman Moqbel was nominated for the BOND Humanitarian Award.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-attack-world-central-kitchen-part-of-cynical-war-strategy-gaza
posted by Satish Sharma at
05:31
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