World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés is calling for accountability after the death of 7 WCK workers in Gaza in an IDF airstrike. In an interview with Reuters, the celebrity chef made his position quite clear, saying: “What I know is that we were targeted deliberately, nonstop until everybody was dead in this convoy.”
The celebrity chef went on to request an independent investigation by the U.S. government and by the governments of every worker who was killed. The workers, who have been identified, were Australian, Canadian, Polish, British, and Palestinian, as well as from the United States.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack on the WCK workers was not intentional, with the Israeli government calling it “a tragic event in which our forces unintentionally harmed non-combatants.” Andrés, however, explained in his interview that WCK communicated with the IDF about their movements, and the convoy was marked with the organization’s logo.
“This was not just a bad luck situation where ‘oops’ we dropped the bomb in the wrong place. This was over a 1.5, 1.8 kilometers, with a very defined humanitarian convoy that had signs in the top, on the roof, a very colorful logo,” he explained, adding that it was “very clear who we are and what we do.”
World Central Kitchen denounced the “military attack that involved multiple strikes and targeted three WCK vehicles” and called for the “Israeli government to immediately preserve all documents, communications, video and/or audio recordings, and any other materials potentially relevant to the April 1 strikes.”
“It is not a sign of weakness to feed strangers; it is a sign of strength. The people of Israel need to remember, at this darkest hour, what strength truly looks like,” José Andrés said in an opinion piece published in the New York Times after the attack.