The World Central Kitchen plans to resume operations in the Gaza Strip Monday, four weeks after Israeli airstrikes killed seven of its aid workers, including one Canadian.
The organization suspended food delivery in the region after the attack on three World Central Kitchen vehicles full of food from a nearby warehouse.
The aid group says the vehicles were clearly marked and their movements were known to the Israeli military when they were hit.
Jacob Flickinger, a 33-year-old military veteran from Quebec, was killed, along with six of his colleagues.
Israel accepted responsibility and said the strikes were unintentional, and has pledged to change its rules accordingly.
Flickinger’s parents, Sylvie Labrecque and John Flickinger, say the attack on their son and his colleagues was a clear, targeted attack by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) because of how obviously marked the World Central Kitchen convoy was. It was also travelling on a well-used humanitarian route and the group had co-ordinated its movements in advance with the IDF, they said.
“In my mind, this was a targeted killing of aid workers who happened to be foreign,” Flickinger’s father said in an interview with CBC News on April 3.
“It’s happened before. Most of the aid workers killed to date have been from Gaza, and it’s part of an attempt to — I don’t know what they’re thinking — starve the population in Palestine? I don’t know. Punishment? Revenge?
“This war is senseless. All wars are senseless.”
The aid group says it plans to restart its operations to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but reiterates calls for an independent investigation into the deaths of its workers.
Chef José Andrés appeared in an interview with Reuters, imploring the violence in Gaza to come to an end after seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed by an Israeli airstrike. ‘This looks like it’s not a war against terrorism anymore’, said Andrés. ‘It seems it’s a war against humanity itself.’
In a report four days after the strikes, Israel described the incident as “a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures.”
A reserve colonel and a major were dismissed from their posts, and three more senior officers were reprimanded.
Western governments that lost citizens in the strike have indicated since then that they’re not satisfied with Israel’s response.