How Israeli strikes on aid convoy unfolded
By the time of the World Central Kitchen tragedy, SUVs and trucks bearing the aid organisation’s distinctive logo had become increasingly common in Gaza.
On Tuesday last week (NZ time) three of its vehicles were travelling on the coastal road used as a humanitarian corridor. Two were armoured and bore the frying pan logo on the roof, the group said. A third was an unmodified “soft-skin” vehicle. None of them would return to base. Inside the vehicles were seven of the group’s employees and volunteers, including a Palestinian as well as aid workers from the United States, Britain, Poland, Australia and other countries drawn to the globe’s worst humanitarian crisis.
They were one of the teams forming part of the pop-up maritime supply chain that WCK had constructed, using barges, temporary piers and convoys, to get food from Europe to aid points around Gaza.
The group had just been part of a convoy that unloaded more than 100 tons of aid at a warehouse at Deir al-Balah, according to a WCK statement. Three cars were making a return trip to staging areas near the Egyptian border, heading along Al-Rasheed Rd.
The team had co-ordinated with Israeli military officials and had clearance to drive the route, WCK said. Israel Defence Forces officials said they have been working closely with WCK for months in Gaza
But the route, one of the few lanes of humanitarian aid crossing Gaza, is cited as a “high-risk zone” by the United Nations because of deadly incidents along the way.
The WCK workers wore bulletproof vests within the armoured cars. The group had reportedly complained to the Israeli military days earlier that an IDF sniper had fired into a WCK car, without any of the occupants being struck.
The team was used to dangerous situations. James Henderson, 33, a British volunteer, had been a Special Forces officer. Australian Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, 43, had previously delivered food from the back of a motorcycle along earthquake-shattered roads in Haiti. She had written that even for her, Gaza was “intense”.
“I’m getting used to the drones but the booms still make my tummy go funny,” she recently texted to Josh Phelps, WCK’s former director of relief operations.
Sometime around 10:30pm on Monday (local time), a 29-year-old volunteer with the Palestine Red Crescent who was on duty not far from Al-Rasheed Rd heard an explosion. A few minutes later, his crew got a call about airstrikes on vehicles.
The man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to security concerns, provided a video that he took of the scene shortly after, showing technicians arriving at a white Toyota stalled in the roadway.
“They are foreigners,” one technician says, looking at the bloodied interior. “Why were they struck?” another asks. “I have no idea why they were stuck. How would I know?”
Shortly after, the crew pulls out the badly damaged first body, a man still wearing his bulletproof vest.
Other crews responded to two other vehicles that had been hit along the same stretch of road, the man said.
Imagery of the aftermath reviewed and geolocated by The Washingon Post shows that all of the vehicles were destroyed within 2.5km of each other, suggesting that some had a chance to keep driving after the attack began.
One vehicle was off to the side of the road. The hood was largely disintegrated, the windows blown out and the doors blackened.
A second vehicle, a Toyota, was in the middle of the road 800m to the south, the hole punched through its roof spanning nearly half of its width.
A third vehicle was found 1.6km farther along. It was sideways along the road, much of the metal of the vehicle’s body frayed.
Videos showed some bodies that were damaged beyond recognition. Others were clearly identified by the passport photos open on their vests. Palestinian driver Seif Issam Abu Taha was still in his WCK T-shirt.
Chris Cobb-Smith, a former artillery officer in the British army, said that the “small, confined detonation” suggested the vehicles were struck with a drone-fired missile that is “very accurate with significant penetrating power”.
The IDF declined to comment on reports in Israeli media that its forces had been targeting a possible militant who the Israelis believed may have been in the company of the convoy at some point during the day.