Gaza medical officials say an apparent Israeli airstrike killed four international aid workers with the World Central Kitchen charity and their Palestinian driver after they helped deliver food and other supplies to northern Gaza that had arrived hours early by ship.
Quick Read
- An apparent Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza resulted in the deaths of four international aid workers from World Central Kitchen and their Palestinian driver.
- The victims were returning from delivering food and other supplies, which had arrived by ship from Cyprus hours earlier.
- The deceased included nationals from Britain, Australia, and Poland; the fourth aid worker’s nationality was unspecified.
- The Israeli military has not commented on the incident, and the source of the strike has not been independently verified.
- The aid delivery was part of a joint effort by the United Arab Emirates and World Central Kitchen, coordinated with the Israeli military.
- The sea route for aid delivery to northern Gaza, where famine is an imminent threat, is promoted by the U.S. as a crucial supply channel due to restrictions on land deliveries by Israel.
- Israeli forces concluded a two-week raid on Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, causing extensive damage to the facility and surrounding areas.
- The Israeli military claims the operation resulted in the death of 200 militants, though this has not been independently verified.
- The raid has exacerbated tensions between Israel and the protesters demanding more action to retrieve hostages held in Gaza.
- Concurrently, an Israeli airstrike targeted Iran’s consulate in Syria, killing Iranian military personnel, signaling an escalation in Israel’s actions against Iranian forces in the region.
- Amid these developments, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the immediate shutdown of Al Jazeera in Israel, accusing the network of incitement and supporting Hamas.
- The operation at Shifa Hospital has sparked international concern, with reports of civilian casualties and the impact on Gaza’s already fragile healthcare system.
- The recent events highlight the complex and escalating conflict dynamics in the region, involving various state and non-state actors.
The Associated Press has the story:
Gaza medical officials: Israeli strike kills 4 foreign aid workers and a driver
Newslooks- DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) —
Gaza medical officials say an apparent Israeli airstrike killed four international aid workers with the World Central Kitchen charity and their Palestinian driver after they helped deliver food and other supplies to northern Gaza that had arrived hours early by ship.
Footage showed the bodies of the five dead at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah. Several of them wore protective gear with the charity’s logo. Staff showed the passports of three of the dead – British, Australian and Polish. The nationality of the fourth aid worker was not immediately known.
The workers’ car was hit by an Israeli strike just after crossing from northern Gaza after helping deliver aid that had arrived hours earlier on a ship from Cyprus, Mahmoud Thabet, a paramedic from the Palestinian Red Crescent who was on the team that brought the bodies to the hospital, told The Associated Press. The source of fire could not be independently confirmed and the Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment.
The aid ships that arrived Monday carried some 400 tons of food and supplies in a shipment organized by the United Arab Emirates and the World Central Kitchen, the charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés. Last month a ship delivered 200 tons of aid in a pilot run. The Israeli military was involved in coordinating both deliveries.
The U.S. has touted the sea route as a new way to deliver desperately needed aid to northern Gaza, where several hundred Palestinians face imminent famine, largely cut off from the rest of the territory by Israeli forces. Israel has barred UNRWA, the main U.N. agency in Gaza, from making deliveries to the north, and other aid groups say sending truck convoys north has been too dangerous because of the military’s failure to ensure safe passage.
The Israeli military withdrew from Gaza’s largest hospital early Monday after a two-week raid that engulfed the facility and surrounding districts in fighting. Footage showed widespread devastation, with the facility’s main buildings reduced to burned-out husks.
The military has described the raid on Shifa Hospital as a major battlefield victory in the nearly six-month war, and officials said Israeli troops killed 200 militants in the operation, though the claim that they were all militants could not be confirmed.
The raid came at a time of mounting frustration in Israel, with tens of thousands protesting Sunday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and demanding that he do more to bring home dozens of hostages held in Gaza. It was the largest anti-government demonstration since the start of the war.
Elsewhere, Syrian officials and state media said an Israeli airstrike destroyed the Iran’s consulate in Syria, killing two Iranian generals and five officers.
The strike appears to signify an escalation of Israel’s targeting of Iranian military officials and their allies in Syria. The targeting has intensified since Hamas militants — who are supported by Iran — attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
While Iran’s consular building was leveled in the attack, according to Syria’s SANA state news agency, its main embassy building remained intact.
Israel, which rarely acknowledges such strikes, said it had no comment. Iran’s ambassador, Hossein Akbari, vowed revenge for the attack “at the same magnitude and harshness.”
In other developments, Netanyahu said he would shut down satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera immediately. Netanyahu vowed to close the “terror channel” after parliament passed a law Monday clearing the way for the country to halt the Qatari-owned channel from broadcasting from Israel.
Netanyahu accused Al Jazeera of harming Israeli security, participating in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and inciting violence against Israel.
Al Jazeera condemned his remarks, calling them “a dangerous and ridiculous lie” and saying they were Netanyahu’s justification “for the ongoing assault” on the media network and press freedom. In a statement, the network vowed to persist in its reporting with “boldness and professionalism.”
The hospital raid gutted a facility that had once been the heart of Gaza’s health care system but which doctors and staff had struggled to get even partially operating again after a previous Israeli assault in November.
Israel said it launched the latest raid on Shifa because senior Hamas operatives had regrouped there and were planning attacks. Israeli authorities identified six officials from Hamas’ military wing they said were killed inside the hospital during the raid. Israel also said it seized weapons and valuable intelligence.
In all, the military said it killed 200 militants inside and outside Shifa, though it provided no evidence all were militants.
The raid triggered days of heavy fighting for blocks around Shifa, with witnesses reporting airstrikes, the shelling of homes and troops going house to house to force residents to leave.
After the troops withdrew, hundreds of Palestinians returned to search for lost loved ones or examine the damage.
Among the dead were Ahmed Maqadma and his mother — both doctors at Shifa — and his cousin, said Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a Palestinian-British doctor who volunteered at Shifa and other hospitals during the first months of the war before returning to Britain.
The fate of the three had been unknown since they talked by phone with family as they tried to leave Shifa nearly a week ago and the line suddenly went dead. On Monday, relatives found their bodies with gunshot wounds about a block from the hospital, said Abu Sitta, who is in touch with the family.
Mohammed Mahdi, who was among those who returned to the area, described a scene of “total destruction.” He said several buildings had been burned down and that he counted six bodies in the area, including two in the hospital courtyard, though it was not clear when they died.
Video footage circulating online showed the main buildings of Shifa charred and heavily damaged. Several witnesses said army bulldozers had plowed up a mass grave that had been dug in November in Shifa’s courtyard, leaving many bodies exposed.
At least 21 patients died during the raid, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted late Sunday on X, formerly Twitter.
He said over 100 patients were still inside the compound during the operation, including four children, 28 critical patients and many who suffered from infected wounds and dehydration.
The military denied that its forces harmed any civilians inside the compound. Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes and has raided many hospitals across the territory.
Critics accuse the army of recklessly endangering civilians and of decimating a health sector already overwhelmed with wounded.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the top military spokesman, said Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group established their main northern headquarters inside the hospital. He described days of close-quarters fighting and blamed Hamas for the destruction, saying some fighters barricaded themselves inside hospital wards while others launched mortar rounds at the compound.
Hagari said the troops arrested some 900 suspected militants during the raid, including more than 500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, and seized over $3 million in different currencies, as well as weapons.
He said the army evacuated more than 200 of the estimated 300 to 350 patients and delivered food, water and medical supplies to the rest. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the raid, the military said.
The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage.
Israel responded with an air, land and sea offensive that has killed at least 32,845 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The Israeli military blames the civilian toll on Palestinian militants because they fight in dense residential areas.
The war has displaced most of the territory’s population and driven a third of its residents to the brink of famine. Northern Gaza, where Shifa is located, has suffered vast destruction and has been largely isolated since October, leading to widespread hunger.
Meanwhile, a second shipment of food aid arrived by sea in the latest test of a new maritime route from the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. One of the three boats could be seen off the coast, and Cyprus’ foreign minister said they had received permission to unload. The precise mechanism of delivery was not yet clear.
Netanyahu has vowed to keep up the offensive until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are freed. He says Israel will soon expand ground operations to the southern city of Rafah, where some 1.4 million people — more than half of Gaza’s population — have sought refuge.
But he faces mounting pressure from Israelis who blame him for the security failures of Oct. 7 and from some families of the hostages who blame him for the failure to reach a deal despite several weeks of talks mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt. Allied countries, including main backer the United States, have warned him against an invasion of Rafah.
Hamas and other militants are still believed to be holding some 100 hostages and the remains of 30 others, after freeing most of the rest during a cease-fire last November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
As Israeli withdraws from raid on Shifa Hospital, accounts from military and witnesses differ wildly
JERUSALEM (AP) — On Monday, the Israeli military withdrew from its second devastating raid on Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, leaving it in ruins, with the walls blown out and frame blackened.
Despite the destruction, Israel claimed the battle as a victory in its battle against Hamas militants — and said it hadn’t harmed civilians sheltering inside the hospital.
But accounts from observers on the ground and the World Health Organization tell a different story.
They describe a terrifying two-week raid during which more than a dozen civilians died and others were brutally detained and trapped inside a facility with dwindling supplies.
Here’s what’s been said about the raid.
HAVE CIVILIANS AND PATIENTS BEEN KILLED?
Israel said its forces launched the surprise attack March 18. After two weeks of battles inside Shifa, the military had killed 200 militants, spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters Monday. He maintained that no civilians sheltering inside the hospital were harmed and said forces had provided some 6,000 Palestinians sheltering there with food, water, and medicine. The army deployed medical teams and Arabic speakers to communicate and help those inside before evacuating everyone effectively, he said.
But World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday that 21 patients inside the hospital had died since the start of the siege. He said 107 patients had been left inside the hospital, including young children and adults in critical condition. He said they lack “health support, medical care and supplies.”
“Since yesterday only one bottle of water remains for every 15 people. Contagious diseases are spreading due to extremely unsanitary conditions, and a lack of water,” he wrote on X.
The raid triggered days of fighting for blocks around Shifa. Witnesses and journalists reported airstrikes, the shelling of homes and troops forcing residents to evacuate.
One resident, Mohammed Al-Sheikh, said Israeli fighter jets were “hitting anything moving in the area.”
Another, Bassel al-Hilou, said seven relatives were killed in Israeli airstrikes.
“There was a massacre in my uncle’s house,” he said Monday morning, as hundreds returned to bury the dead, examine the damage or search for loved ones. “The situation was indescribable.”
The Israeli military did not comment on any civilian deaths near or outside the hospital.
WHO HAS ISRAEL ARRESTED AND DETAINED?
Israel said it arrested 900 suspected militants. Of those, Israel said, it has confirmed 500 are militants — some of them high-level commanders and members of Hamas’ top political echelon.
But accounts from the Gaza Health Ministry and Al Jazeera, a Qatari-based media network, said medical workers and journalists were among those detained and brutalized by Israeli forces.
A group of reporters was handcuffed, blindfolded and stripped of their clothes for 12 hours, a statement from Al Jazeera said. Israel’s military did not respond to an AP request for comment on the allegation.
WHAT HAPPENED AS THE RAID ENDED?
After killing and rounding up suspects inside the hospital, military spokesman Hagari said, Israeli forces retreated, exiting the compound on Monday. Two Israeli soldiers were killed and eight injured in the fighting, he said.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group loosely linked to President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, said its fighters had targeted Israeli forces with artillery during the operation and as forces withdrew.
Hamas also released videos of militants preparing shells that it said were directed toward Israeli forces in the hospital compound.
Hagari acknowledged that the fighting had destroyed Shifa’s emergency ward and a major hospital compound.
“Beside the success, there is a tragedy,” he said. “Because of the barricading, because of the bombs and explosives that we used in those buildings. That is the tragedy of ruining the hospital, although we tried everything we can to prevent it.”
WHY DID ISRAEL TARGET SHIFA FOR A SECOND TIME?
Since Hamas militants stormed southern Israel on Oct. 7, Israel has made Shifa a central component of its blistering counteroffensive on Gaza.
Israel faces heavy scrutiny over its two major offensives on Shifa. Hospitals receive special protections under international law. Israel says Shifa lost that protection because it is a central command and control center for Hamas. Rights groups and international lawyers say evidence to support this claim has been faulty and insufficient.
In justifying its first raid, Israel said that underneath the hospital lay a complex network of tunnels, a central command center for Hamas. Evidence produced from that raid— caches of weapons, a tunnel leading to small, rusty quarters that appeared out of use, and no scores of militants found — fell far short of the claim.
Hagari said Monday that the intelligence had been wrong and that Israel had tipped off Hamas militants at Shifa by announcing its attack plans.
“They left there because they knew we were coming,” he said. “And this time, we did something else.”
By doubling back to Shifa in mid-March, he said, forces surprised militants who had regrouped inside.
He said the military now believes militants operated mainly from the hospital wards themselves, not tunnels underneath.
