Chef José Andrés, mourning the loss of seven aid workers killed by an Israeli airstrike as they worked for his nonprofit World Central Kitchen, said Israel is “a war against humanity itself” in Gaza and “deliberately attacked” the slain workers as they worked to feed Palestinians on the verge of famine.
“This doesn't seem a war against terror. This doesn't seem anymore a war about defending Israel. This really, at this point, seems it's a war against humanity itself,” the world-renowned chef and humanitarian said on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday. “That the convoy was deliberately attacked, it was obvious. The precision, the continuous following over 1.8 kilometers until the three cars were totally destroyed and all the members inside those three. Obviously, this was targeted.”
“Civilians must be protected. Humanitarian organizations must be protected. They are people that have names and last names. They are people that matter. They cannot be voiceless. They cannot be ghosts of wars that don't make sense,” Andrés added.
The seven World Central Kitchen workers, including one American, were distributing food that had been brought into Gaza through a newly established maritime corridor when Israeli airstrikes targeted their three vehicles late Monday, killing everyone inside.
Israel said it carried out the strikes by mistake and that it has launched an investigation. World Central Kitchen said it had coordinated its movements with the military, and the vehicles were marked with the organization's logo.
Some of Israel’s closest allies condemned the deaths, which led the World Central Kitchen and other charities to suspend food deliveries, citing the dire security situation.
Andrés described a phone call with President Joe Biden he had last week, saying he told the president he should “be defending and supporting the right of Palestinians not to die just trying to be getting a piece of bread.”
“I think both truths can live in the same place. You can be a friend of Israel, and at the same time, you can be telling your partner in the Middle East, you cannot be conducting war in such a way. You cannot be destroying every building, every hospital, every school, every university,” he said. “You cannot be destroying just the future for decades of more than two million Palestinians, and in the process leaving them hungry, leaving them without water or what is even worse -- just shooting them in the middle of the street in the process of trying to have access to food.”
In a Thursday call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said the airstrikes were “unacceptable” and “made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on” establishing a plan to avoid similar killings going forward, according to the White House. On Sunday, Andrés said changes in U.S. policy should already be implemented, particularly in light of the killing of an American citizen, 33-year-old Jacob Flickinger. Flickinger was a dual U.S. and Canadian citizen and was a Canadian Armed Forces veteran of the war in Afghanistan. Another aid worker, Australian citizen Zomi Frankcom, helped feed New Yorkers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think ‘there will be consequences’ is part of the problem. Should be already consequences. Support Israel's right to defend itself, but you cannot be just giving weapons that they are killing American citizens who are humanitarians," Andrés said. “You can be supporting Israel's right to defend themselves, but at the same time, you can be asking Israel to conduct themselves at the highest possible human level.”
In a separate interview with “This Week,” top White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said “if there’s no changes to their policy, then there’s going to have to be changes to ours.”
Andrés’ World Central Kitchen has supplied millions of meals in warzones and the sites of natural disasters since it was founded in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the organization says they have served more than 260 meals. On Sunday, Andrés compared Netanyahu’s direction of the war to that of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been accused of war crimes in Ukraine.
“I've seen firsthand what has been happening in Ukraine. Entire towns and cities being wiped out by Russia and by Putin. But Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing this exactly the same,” he said.
In the six months since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on southern Israel that killed around 1,200 and triggered the war,” Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Beyond that, 75% of the Gazan population has been displaced and “famine is imminent” as 2.13 million people face “high levels of acute food insecurity” and 677,000 are “experiencing catastrophic food insecurity,” the World Health Organization said in March. At least 27 children died of malnutrition as of March 25, according to the WHO.
“Children are dying as we speak and those that are not dying or haven't died yet are so emaciated and, and lacking so much in weight, important nutrients at this particular time in their life cycles,” World Food Programme executive director Cindy McCain said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “If they do live, they'll never recover from it.”
Andrés pleaded for Israel to change course.
“It is unforgivable. I will have to live with this the rest of my life. We all will have to live with this the rest of our lives,” he said. “The best future we can be providing for our children is when we provide for the children of the people we don’t know, the same future, and the same hope we are trying to provide for our own. What is so difficult to understand about that?”