Tag: middleeast

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations has accused Israel of deliberately targeting the World Central Kitchen staff killed by a strike in Gaza this week.

“The killing of the aid workers from the World Central Kitchen is not an isolated incident,” the ambassador, Riyad Mansour, said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday.

“Israel knew very well who it was targeting, hitting three cars in three locations, despite the fact that they were identifiable and had gotten coordinated with Israel,” Mansour added.

The ambassador said “it took the deaths of foreigners” for the international community to acknowledge the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza over the past 180 days. The strike killed one Palestinian, three Britons, a US-Canadian dual citizen, an Australian and a Pole, according to the organization.

Israeli report: On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces published a report into the killings, which it said violated its own protocols and should not have happened.

The report found that IDF forces “mistakenly assumed” there were Hamas gunmen traveling in the aid convoy and opened fire on the vehicles.

The WCK has called for further independent investigations, saying the IDF cannot be trusted to “investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

Read more about the IDF report.

Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday that “everybody has failed” when it comes to securing the release of hostages held in Gaza, including their son Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old American, was wounded and kidnapped by Hamas at an Israeli music festival.

“Our leaders, all of them, have failed to make this suffering on all sides stop,” Rachel Goldberg told CNN.

“We feel that we as parents have failed ’cause, as a parent your job is to keep your children safe and, if they get into trouble, to save them,” she added.

It has been 181 days since Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped by Hamas. His parents wear a badge that is updated daily to represent the days since Hersh was taken into Gaza.

Jon Polin said he couldn’t help but feel that day 181 would become 281, 381, and even 581.

“We can’t allow that to happen, but world leaders don’t seem to have that sense of urgency,” Polin said.

Goldberg said she often feels she is not “living on the same planet as ‘normal’ people,” as she and her husband are constantly strategizing on how to best bring their son home.

A video of Goldberg-Polin being kidnapped, which his parents have seen, shows his left hand and part of his arm either blown or shot off.

When asked by Cooper if they had received any word about their son’s condition, Goldberg said there has been none, but there is an assumption, based on information from hostages who have been released, that Goldberg-Polin received medical treatment on October 7.

“The assumption is that he is alive,” Goldberg added.

A deadly Israeli attack that killed seven aid workers from the nonprofit World Central Kitchen in Gaza on Monday appears to have consisted of multiple precision strikes, a CNN analysis of aftermath videos and images found.

WCK said in a statement Tuesday that its team was traveling in a “deconflicted zone” in two armored cars and one unarmored vehicle, after dropping off more than 100 tons of food supplies at a warehouse in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, when the attack occurred. The charity said it had coordinated the convoy’s movements with the Israeli military.

CNN geolocated video and imagery of all three destroyed vehicles, at least one of which was clearly marked with a WCK logo on its roof, to two positions on the strip’s Al Rashid coastal road, and a third location on an off-road area of open ground nearby. The first location is around 2.4 kilometers (about 1.5 miles) from the third, indicating that the three vehicles were hit by separate strikes.

The first vehicle, which appeared to have suffered the least damage, was geolocated on Al Rashid street just outside Deir al-Balah. The second car, which was clearly fire damaged with a hole through its WCK-marked roof, was located around 800 meters down the same road. CNN geolocated the third car, which seems to be the “soft skin” or unarmored vehicle referenced in WCK’s statement and appeared to be the most heavily damaged, to an open field 1.6 kilometers from the second car.

Read more about the World Central Kitchen convoy attack.

A Palestinian-American doctor walked out of a meeting with US President Joe Biden before it was over Tuesday evening, underscoring the high tensions, anger and concern from Arab, Palestinian and Muslim-American communities around the Israel-Hamas war. 

Dr. Thaer Ahmad, an emergency physician from Chicago who traveled to Gaza earlier this year, told CNN he abruptly left the meeting that included Vice President Kamala Harris, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, other administration officials and a small group of Muslim community leaders.  

Following the meeting, a White House official said in a statement that the president and vice president “know this is a deeply painful moment for many in the Muslim and Arab communities.”

Ahmad traveled to Gaza as part of a delegation of doctors from the NGO MedGlobal, working in the city of Khan Younis as fighting raged around the Al Nasser hospital. He discussed his experience there, citing massive numbers of displaced, injured and dying people, and he spoke out against an expected Israeli offensive in Rafah.

Before he left, he handed Biden a letter from an 8-year-old orphaned girl, Hadeel, who lives in Rafah.  

“I beg you, President Biden, stop them from entering Rafah,” a translation of the letter shared with CNN says. Hadeel is referring to Israel’s declared plan to enter the southern Gaza city, which the US has said Israel should not do without a comprehensive plan to protect civilian lives.

Biden told him he understood that he needed to leave, Ahmad said. 

CNN previously reported that what was supposed to be an iftar dinner to break the Ramadan fast was changed to a meeting because participants didn’t feel comfortable having a celebratory meal while hundreds of thousands in Gaza are on the brink of famine.