IRIA News

Growing political pressure has been mounting on the British Prime Minister and the U.S. President to halt arms exports to Israel following the deaths of seven foreign aid workers from World Central Kitchen in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza.

The Israeli attack, which killed Australian, British, Palestinian, Polish, and U.S.-Canadian staff, was widely condemned by world leaders who demanded an investigation.

The Western leaders are being urged by both internal political factions as well as international organizations to restrict the flow of weapons to Israel. U.S. President Joe Biden is under intense pressure by the members of his party to stop weapons supply to Israel. The U.S. political factions are demanding an end to U.S. complicity in the deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza.

While Biden expressed his “outrage and heartbreak” over the deaths of seven humanitarian workers killed by Israeli forces this week, Democrats and progressives are increasingly urging the administration to halt military aid to Israel unless the nation takes more significant steps to safeguard lives.

Independent Jewish U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders delivered the most severe condemnation of the White House’s support for Israel by describing the devastation in Gaza as “among the most egregious humanitarian disasters in modern history”. Sanders directly called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “stop murdering innocent civilians.”

“Right now, what Israel is doing is fighting not just Hamas, but going to war against the entire Palestinian people, and this World Central Kitchen horror is just one part of what the Netanyahu war machine is doing,” Sanders told media reports referring to the recent incident where a convoy of aid workers was targeted by the Israeli force.

Other Democratic senators including Tim Kaine, Elizabeth Warren, and Chris Murphy, and several other members of Congress, penned a letter to the White House on March 22, asserting that Israel’s obstruction of humanitarian aid to Gaza was evident, constituting a breach of a U.S. directive mandating recipients of American military aid to adhere to international human rights standards.

Rishi Sunak faces growing pressure to stop arms sales to Israel

At the same time, the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is also encountering escalating political pressure to cease arms sales to Israel following the deaths of aid workers, which included three British citizens.

The UK’s opposition parties along with some Members of Parliament from the governing Conservative Party called for the British government to consider suspending arms sales to Israel as a reaction to the attack on the aid workers.

Meanwhile, three former Supreme Court justices, alongside over 600 lawyers, legal scholars, and retired senior judges, have urged the government to cease arms sales to Israel. They argue that such sales could implicate Britain in potential genocide in Gaza.

In a 17-page letter addressed to Sunak, they stated, “The provision of military assistance and material to Israel may render the UK complicit in genocide as well as serious breaches of international humanitarian law.” They emphasized that customary international law acknowledges the notion of “aiding and assisting” in an international wrongful act.

Killing of foreign aid workers in Gaza

Israel’s defense chief acknowledged that the forces conducted a targeted strike to kill seven aid workers in Gaza. Following widespread international condemnation of the incident, the defense chief said that the attack was a “grave mistake”.

“We are sorry for the unintentional harm to the members of WCK.” IDF chief Herzi Halevi said in a video message after the strike that hit a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy delivering aid on April 1, 2024.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the General Assembly that 196 humanitarian workers have been killed in the war. He called the strike “unconscionable” but “an inevitable result of the way the war is being conducted.”

WCK said it was mourning the loss of its seven “heroes,” identifying them as 25-year-old Palestinian Saifeddine Issam Ayad Abutaha, 43-year-old Australian Lalzawmi Frankcom, 35-year-old Damian Sobol from Poland, 33-year-old American-Canadian Jacob Flickinger, and three British citizens, John Chapman, 57, James Henderson, 33, and James Kirby, 47.

Founded by the Michelin-starred chef José Andrés, World Central Kitchen (WCK) is a disaster relief nonprofit that provides meals to communities facing war, natural disasters, and other calamities.

Disaster relief organization calls it a “targeted attack”

The organization called the strike a “targeted attack” and said its team had been coordinating its movements with the Israeli forces.

In an emotional interview with Reuters, celebrity chef José Andrés said that food aid workers were targeted “systematically, car by car.” He added that the IDF was aware of the whereabouts and movements of the convoy. “They were targeting us in a deconflicting zone, in an area controlled by IDF. They, knowing that it was our teams moving on that road … with three cars,” he said.

Andres called for investigations of the incident by the U.S. government and by the home country of every aid worker who was killed.

World Central Kitchen CEO Erin Gore said: “This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable.”

“I am heartbroken and appalled that we — World Central Kitchen and the world — lost beautiful lives today because of a targeted attack by the IDF,” Gore added.

Since the beginning of the conflict, Gaza has faced an Israeli blockade. The United Nations has accused Israel of obstructing humanitarian aid shipments, raising concerns about the potential for “catastrophic” hunger. World Central Kitchen has been one of the very organizations active in the region, assisting in the distribution of supplies transported by sea from Cyprus.

More than 200 aid workers, mostly Palestinians, have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to the UK-based charity Islamic Relief.