World Central Kitchen workers killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza are honored at memorial
WASHINGTON — Mourners gathered Thursday at the National Cathedral in Washington to honor the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza this month.
José Andrés, the celebrity chef and philanthropist behind the Washington-based World Central Kitchen disaster relief group, was expected to speak at the celebration of life service and cellist Yo-Yo Ma was to perform, organizers said.
Douglas Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, and Kurt Campbell, the deputy secretary of State, were among the attendees. Diplomats from more than 30 countries were also on hand, as were officials from both the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), one of the most active lawmakers pushing President Biden to condition military aid on improved Israeli treatment of aid workers and Palestinian civilians, joined the mourners as a lone bagpiper played.
Aid workers for international nonprofit World Central Kitchen were killed in an apparent Israel Defense Forces airstrike in Gaza, according to chef José Andrés, founder of the group.
The aid workers were killed April 1 when strikes from armed Israeli drones ripped through vehicles in their convoy as they left one of World Central Kitchen’s warehouses on a food delivery mission. Those who died were Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha; Britons John Chapman, James Kirby and James Henderson; dual U.S.-Canadian citizen Jacob Flickinger; Australian citizen Lalzawmi Frankcom; and Polish citizen Damiam Sobol.
After an unusually swift investigation, Israel said the military officials involved in the attack had violated policy by acting based on a single grainy photo that one officer had concluded — incorrectly — showed one of the seven workers was armed. The Israeli military dismissed two officers and reprimanded three others.
The aid workers, whose trip had been coordinated with Israeli officials, are among more than 220 humanitarian workers killed in the Israel-Hamas war that began Oct. 7, according to the United Nations. That includes at least 30 killed in the line of duty.
World Central Kitchen staff killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza were British, Australian, Polish, American-Canadian and Gazan. They helped amid wars, earthquakes and wildfires.
The international prominence and popularity of Andrés and his nonprofit work galvanized widespread outrage over the killings of the group’s workers. The deaths intensified demands from the Biden administration and others that Israel’s military change how it operates in Hamas-controlled Gaza to spare aid workers and Palestinian civilians at large, who are facing a humanitarian crisis and desperately need aid from relief organizations as the U.N. warns of looming famine.
World Central Kitchen, along with several other humanitarian aid agencies, suspended work in the territory after the attack. “We haven’t given up,” World Central Kitchen spokesperson Linda Roth said last week. “We are in funeral mode right now.”
Religious leaders of a range of faiths were set to participate in Thursday’s services. Funerals were held earlier in the workers’ home countries.
Knickmeyer writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.
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