WCK suspended operations in the Gaza Strip after an airstrike by the Israeli army killed seven volunteers. The organization reported that they were attacked while delivering food aid. Australian and British citizens and one person with U.S.-Canadian citizenship were also among the fatalities. A Palestinian driver was also killed.
“We are resuming our activities with the same energy, dignity and focus on feeding as many people as possible,” WCK head Erin Gore said in a statement published Sunday on the organization’s website.
“To date, we have distributed more than 43 million meals and are eager to provide millions more. Food is a universal right, “ she stressed, adding that the work in Gaza was, in terms of saving lives, the most important WCK mission in the organization’s 14-year history. “We will continue to deliver as much food as possible to the Gaza Strip, including the northern part of the Strip, by land, air or sea,” she added.
She reported that the JCRC has 276 trucks ready to enter the Strip through the Rafah border crossing, intends to send aid trucks also from Jordan, and is studying the possibility of using the
humanitarian sea corridor from Cyprus and the port of Ashdod.
Damian’s Kitchen
The organization also announced that it will open its third kitchen in the Gaza Strip, in the coastal city of Al-Mawasi. It will be named “Damian’s Kitchen,” named after Polish volunteer Damian Soból, who was
killed in an Israeli airstrike on April 1. WCK has two other kitchens in Gaza, one in Rafah and another in Deir al-Balah.
The WCK renewed its call for an impartial international investigation into the April 1 attack. Gore stressed that the raid there put the organization in a dilemma.
“We were forced to make a decision: completely stop feeding [the needy- TVP World] during one of the worst famine crises in history and end our operations, which accounted for 62% of all aid from international NGOs, or continue feeding, knowing that humanitarian workers and civilians are being intimidated and killed,” Gore said.
“Ultimately, we decided that we must continue to feed, continuing our mission to provide food to people in the most difficult times,” she concluded.
