Officials: Israeli strike kills 5 in north
Foreign aid workers, driver delivered food, supplies before car hit
DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA STRIP>> An apparent Israeli airstrike killed four international aid workers with the World Central Kitchen charity and their Palestinian driver late Monday after they helped deliver food and other supplies to northern Gaza that had arrived hours earlier by ship, health officials in Gaza said.
Footage showed the bodies of the five dead at Al-aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir al-balah. Several of them wore protective gear with the charity’s logo. Staff showed the passports of three of the dead — British, Australian and Polish. The nationality of the fourth aid worker was not immediately known.
The workers’ car was hit by an Israeli strike just after crossing from northern Gaza after helping deliver aid that had arrived hours earlier on a ship from Cyprus, Mahmoud Thabet, a paramedic from the Palestinian Red Crescent who was on the team that brought the bodies to the hospital, told The Associated Press. The source of fire could not be independently confirmed and the Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment.
The aid ships that arrived Monday carried some 400 tons of food and supplies in a shipment organized by the United Arab Emirates and the World Central Kitchen, the charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés. Last month, a ship delivered 200 tons of aid in a pilot run. The Israeli military was involved in coordinating both deliveries.
The U.S. has touted the sea route as a new way to deliver desperately needed aid to northern Gaza, where several hundred Palestinians face imminent famine, largely cut off from the rest of the territory by Israeli forces. Israel has barred UNRWA, the main U.N. agency in Gaza, from making deliveries to the north, and other aid groups say sending truck con
voys north has been too dangerous because of the military’s failure to ensure safe passage.
The strike came hours after Israeli troops ended a two-week raid on Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, leaving the facility largely gutted and a swath of destruction in the surrounding neighborhoods. Footage showed Shifa’s main buildings had been reduced to burned-out husks.
Israel said it launched the raid on Shifa because senior Hamas operatives had regrouped there and were planning attacks. The military said its troops killed 200 militants in the operation, though the claim that they were all militants could not be confirmed, and Palestinians coming to the site after the troops withdrew found bodies of civilians.
Syrian officials and state media said an Israeli airstrike destroyed the Iran’s consulate in Syria, killing two Iranian generals and five officers. The strike appears to signify an escalation of Israel’s targeting of Iranian military officials and their allies in Syria. The targeting has intensified since Hamas — which is supported by Iran — attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
Israel, which rarely acknowledges such strikes, said it had no comment. Iran’s ambassador, Hossein Akbari, vowed revenge for the attack “at the same magnitude and harshness.”
Also, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would shut down satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera immediately after parliament passed a law Monday clearing the way for the country to halt the Qatari-owned channel from broadcasting from Israel.
Netanyahu called the network the “terror channel” and accused it of harming Israeli security, participating in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and inciting violence against Israel.
Al Jazeera condemned his remarks, calling them “a dangerous and ridiculous lie” and saying they were Netanyahu’s justification “for the ongoing assault” on the media network and press freedom.
The Shifa raid gutted a facility that had once been the heart of Gaza’s health care system but which doctors and staff had struggled to get even partially operating again after a previous Israeli assault in November.
The latest assault triggered days of heavy fighting for blocks around Shifa, with witnesses reporting airstrikes, the shelling of homes and troops going house to house to force residents to leave. Israeli authorities identified six officials from Hamas’ military wing they said were killed inside the hospital during the raid. Israel also said it seized weapons and valuable intelligence.
After the troops withdrew, hundreds of Palestinians returned to search for lost loved ones or examine the damage.
At least 21 patients died during the raid, World Health Organization Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted late Sunday on X, formerly Twitter.
The military denied that its forces harmed any civilians inside the compound. Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals for militarythem.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the top military spokesman, said Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group established their main northern headquarters inside the hospital. He described days of close-quarters fighting and blamed Hamas for the destruction, saying some fighters barricaded themselves inside hospital wards while others launched mortar rounds at the compound.
Hagari said the troops arrested some 900 suspected militants during the raid, including more than 500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, and seized over $3 million in different currencies, as well as weapons. He said the army evacuated more than 200 of the estimated 300 to 350 patients.
Netanyahu has vowed to keep up the offensive until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are freed. He says Israel will soon expand ground operations to the southern city of Rafah, where some 1.4 million people — more than half of Gaza’s population — have sought refuge.
But he faces mounting pressure from Israelis who blame him for the security failures of Oct. 7 and from some families of the hostages who blame him for the failure to reach a deal despite several weeks of talks mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt. Tens of thousands protested Sunday, demanding Netanyahu do more to bring home the hostages in the largest anti-government demonstration since the start of the war.