The World Food Programme said on Wednesday it had been forced to suspend the movement of its staff in the Gaza Strip after the Israeli military fired on a UN agency team as its clearly marked vehicle approached an Israeli checkpoint in the Palestinian enclave.
A statement from the agency said the WFP team had returned from a mission with two armored vehicles “after escorting a truck convoy carrying humanitarian cargo toward central Gaza.”
“Despite being clearly marked and having received multiple permissions from Israeli authorities to approach the vehicle, it was directly hit by gunfire as it approached an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) checkpoint,” the WFP said. “It was hit by at least ten bullets: five on the driver’s side, two on the passenger side and three in other parts of the vehicle. None of the staff on board were physically injured.”
While the WFP did not explicitly attribute the shooting to Israeli forces, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters on Wednesday that the food organization’s vehicle was “hit 10 times by Israeli weapons, including bullets aimed at the windshield.”
Cindy McCain, WFP executive director, said the attack was “completely unacceptable and the latest in a series of unnecessary security incidents that have put the lives of the WFP team in Gaza at risk.”
“As last night’s events demonstrate, the current system of conflict prevention is failing, and it cannot continue like this,” McCain said. “I call on the Israeli authorities and all parties to the conflict to act immediately to ensure the safety of all aid workers in Gaza.”
The latest attack by the Israeli military on aid workers in the Gaza Strip comes at a time when famine in the Gaza Strip continues to spread. Israel has sealed off the Gaza Strip with a blockade that restricts the supply of food and other essential goods.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, characterized by the WFP attack as part of Israel’s “starvation strategy”. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked humanitarian workers in Gaza, making the enclave the most dangerous place in the world for aid workers.
Chef José Andrés, founder of a nonprofit organization whose team was fatally attacked by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, expressed his solidarity with the WFP in a social media post late Wednesday.
The WFP did not provide any information on how long the suspension of staff movements would remain in place, but any disruption to WFP’s humanitarian operations could have devastating consequences for starving Palestinians.
In a statement on Wednesday, the UN food agency said Israel’s “frequent and persistent evacuation orders continue to uproot families and the food assistance intended to support them.”
“Last week, WFP lost access to its third and final warehouse in central Gaza, while five community kitchens operated by WFP had to be evacuated,” the agency said. “This week, on Sunday 25 August, evacuation orders affected WFP’s main operations centre in Deir al-Balah, forcing our team to relocate for the third time since the war began.”
