Relief work has become deadly for aid crews
By Elizabeth Stites / For The Conversation
President Joe Biden said he was “outraged” by Israeli military attacks that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers traveling in three vehicles in Gaza on April 2, and called for Israel to conduct a swift investigation into the strikes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he “deeply regrets” the mistake and that Israel would undertake an investigation. World Central Kitchen, one of the few international aid groups operating in Gaza, announced shortly after the attack that it would suspend its operations in Gaza.
This attack was not, as Biden pointed out in his remarks on April 2, a “stand-alone incident.” More than 180 other aid workers have been killed since the start of the Israeli invasion in October, according to the United Nations. Most of them were Palestinians working with the United Nations.
More broadly, attacks on aid workers in many wars, including those in Syria, Mali, Myanmar and Afghanistan, have been on the rise since the late 1990s, according to the nonprofit group Aid Worker Security Database. In 2023, 237 aid workers were killed, kidnapped or wounded, marking a sharp rise from the 35 humanitarians who faced the same fate in 1997.
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