American charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) suspends its operations in the Gaza Strip, which is subject to a genocidal Israeli war, following an Israeli attack in the southern part of the coastal sliver that claimed the lives of three of the charity’s workers.
In a statement on Saturday, the WCK said it was "pausing operations in Gaza at this time."
Earlier in the day, an Israeli aerial attack targeted a vehicle belonging to the charity in Gaza’s city of Khan Younis, killing five people, including the aid workers.
"All three men worked for WCK and they were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Younis," Gaza’s Civil Defense Chief Mahmoud Bassal said, adding that the vehicle had been "marked with its logo [that was] clearly visible."
The Israeli military identified one of the fatalities as a Palestinian enlisted with the WCK, whom it accused of being involved in a retaliatory operation that was staged by Gaza’s resistance movements against the occupied Palestinian territories last October.
The military alleged that the worker had “infiltrated” the occupied territories, and “took part” in the operation.
The WCK, however, said it "had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties” to the operation, and stopped short of confirming any deaths.
The Israeli regime brought the entire Gaza under the war following the operation. The brutal military onslaught has so far claimed the lives of at least 44,382 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
Last week, the United Nations said 333 aid workers had been killed since the start of the war, 243 of whom used to serve the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
In early November, the regime banned UNRWA’s operations across the Palestinian territories, terminating the body’s decades-long crucial relief practices and, therefore, putting millions of lives at risk.
Like the WCK, the Israeli regime has alleged that UNRWA’s staff had “participated” in the resistance operation.
In UNRWA’s case, however, the regime would dish out the allegations on countless occasions, and also claim that many of the body’s employees were "Hamas operatives,” referring to one of the Gaza-based resistance groups that staged the retaliation.