Relatives and friends mourn by the body of Saif Abu Taha, a staff member of the US-based aid group World Central Kitchen who was killed as Israeli strikes hit a convoy of the NGO delivering food aid in Gaza a day earlier, during his funeral in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on April 2, 2024. (Photo by AFP)
Brussels, April 4 (RHC)-- The European Union has condemned as “appalling” Israel’s latest killing of seven aid workers who were delivering food to the starving population in the Gaza Strip.
In a joint statement released on Wednesday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and European Commissioner for Crisis Management Jenaz Lenarčič highlighted the high number of humanitarian workers killed in the Israeli regime’s ongoing war on besieged Gaza.
The Israeli military’s “killing … of seven members of a humanitarian team …, while they were travelling to deliver food to the most vulnerable in Gaza, is appalling,” the statement read.
“We urge a swift implementation of the announced commitment by the Israeli authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and ensure accountability for those who are responsible.”
On Monday, Israeli forces conducted a fatal strike on a clearly identified convoy of international aid workers in Gaza with the charity World Central Kitchen (WCK), including three British nationals, an Australian, a Polish national, an American-Canadian dual citizen and a Palestinian. The attack drew international condemnations and mounted calls for an urgent investigation into the raid.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that the occupation forces had killed the humanitarian workers in the Gaza Strip, saying, “It happens in wartime.”
The EU statement said that the bloc expects “full, immediate and effective implementation” of a recent ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and UN Security Council Resolution 2728 that has demanded an immediate Gaza ceasefire.
It also called on Israel to “allow a full, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to those in need” in the blockaded Palestinian territory.
A United Nations human rights expert says the Israeli military has “intentionally killed” aid workers of WCK in Gaza.
Israeli attack, Netanyahu’s reaction arouse ‘understandable anger’
In an X post on Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Israel's deadly strike and Netanyahu’s reaction to the incident are straining ties between Warsaw and Tel Aviv. “The tragic attack on volunteers and your (Netanyahu's) reaction arouse understandable anger," he said.
Poland had shown solidarity with Israel after the October 7 operation by the Palestinian Hamas resistance group, he noted, adding that this solidarity is now being put “to a really hard test.”
Meanwhile, Poland’s Foreign Ministry reiterated Palestinians’ right to establish a sovereign state. The ministry wrote on X that it recognizes “the right of the Palestinians to establish a state and establish an institutional framework to live in peace.”
Israel waged its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after Hamas carried out its historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 32,916 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 75,494 others. In a war crime, the occupying regime is intentionally starving the people in Gaza by destroying food supplies and severely restricting the flow of food, medicines and other humanitarian goods.
