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Tragic World Central Kitchen Aid Workers Incident Exposes Rank Hypocrisy
Aerial view shows a World Central Kitchen (WCK) barge loaded with food arriving off Gaza, where there is risk of famine after five months of Israel’s military campaign, in this handout image released March 15, 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
The tragic killing of the seven aid workers in Gaza in an IDF drone strike has undoubtedly changed the direction of Israel’s war against Hamas.
After the IDF admitted to making “grave mistakes” in the strike on a World Central Kitchen (WCK) vehicle convoy, pressure has piled on Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire in the Strip, as well as other unpalatable terms Hamas put forward.
In the immediate aftermath, Israel dismissed two military officers and reprimanded several others.
The point that has been ignored by the vast majority of media pundits and politicians as they line up to criticize Israel is that holding up the WCK incident as proof there must be an immediate ceasefire is tantamount to saying that Hamas should stay in power.
Some of the harshest criticism leveled at Israel has come from its staunchest allies, including the United States and the United Kingdom, which have previously stopped short of calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.
The UK’s foreign minister, Lord David Cameron, for example, warned that Britain’s support for Israel was “not unconditional,” while describing the deaths of the WCK workers as “tragic and avoidable.”
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden released a statement on April 2 — mere hours after the incident — which called for a “thorough investigation” that brings full “accountability.”
“Even more tragically, this is not a stand-alone incident. This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed,” the statement added.
Such criticism was mirrored in the international press.
An editorial by The Observer argued that “only a ceasefire in Gaza can save [Israel] from its worst-ever crisis” and called for an “independent, international inquiry into last week’s outrageous killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers.”
“The IDF’s internal investigation and its limited admission of error do not begin to excuse or explain the army’s trigger-happy behaviour and ongoing, systemic problems with targeting,” it added.
Writing in The Guardian, Nesrine Malik described the World Central Kitchen incident as evidence that “Israel has gone rogue.”
The Wall Street Journal attempted to explore what it called the “deadly mistakes of Israel’s military in Gaza,” in a piece that observed how the aid convoy strike had “crystallized a broad international backlash against Israel’s war in Gaza.”
However, the swift and unforgiving reaction to the WCK incident by both international leaders and the media has exposed another issue: a glaring hypocrisy where Israel is judged by a standard that is not applied to its allies.
Opinion writer Brendan O’Neill was among the handful of media pundits to call out this double standard in a piece for The Spectator:
David Cameron has got some front. The Foreign Secretary is haranguing Israel over its tragic unintentional killing of seven aid workers in Gaza, and yet he oversaw a war in which such ‘friendly fire’ horrors were commonplace. In fact, more than seven people were slain in accidental bombings under Cameron’s watch.
It was the Libya intervention of 2011. In that Nato-led excursion, in which Cameron, then prime minister, was an enthusiastic partner, numerous Libyans died as a result of misaimed bombs. Things got so bad that the West’s allies took to painting the roofs of their vehicles bright pink in an effort to avoid Nato’s missiles.”
Another op-ed in Newsweek by international human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky and urban warfare expert John Spencer noted how one inevitable consequence of war is that “errors will occur” and that the US too had made similar errors during its conflicts:
The United States itself, during its withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, mistakenly killed an aid worker and nine members of his family—including seven children—after targeting the wrong vehicle in a Kabul drone strike.
Similarly, NATO members have also, inadvertently and mistakenly, killed civilians, as in Libya in 2011, when 13 people, including ambulance workers, were killed by so-called ‘friendly fire.’
A piece published in The Daily Mail by columnist Richard Littlejohn called out the “nauseating” double standards that the WCK strike has exposed.
Recounting the events that followed the death of his friend, ITN correspondent Terry Lloyd — who was killed alongside several other journalists in a US strike on their clearly marked vehicle on the outskirts of Basra, Iraq, in March 2003 — Littlejohn wrote:
A subsequent inquest ruled that Terry had been unlawfully killed by American troops and his lawyer said he had been the victim of a ‘very serious war crime‘. No one was ever charged.
The shock of his death was as traumatic for his family and friends as for those of the three brave British aid workers killed by Israeli forces in Gaza this week.
But no one at the time demanded that the American-led Coalition — which included 46,000 British military personnel — withdraw immediately from Iraq, allow Saddam Hussein to remain in power and abandon the hunt for what turned out to be non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
Every innocent person killed in this war is a tragedy, whether they are international aid workers or Palestinian civilians. However, suggesting that Israel’s tragic accidents are somehow unique or more severe than others is hypocrisy of the highest order.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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