Chef José Andrés Says Israel Targeted His Aid Workers ‘Deliberately’

José Andrés. Photo: Gari Garaialde/Getty Images

World Central Kitchen founder and celebrity chef José Andrés believes the Israel-launched airstrikes that killed seven of his WCK workers in Gaza on April 1 couldn’t have been a mistake. The strikes killed aid workers — a Palestinian, a Pole, an Australian, a dual U.S. Canadian citizen, and three Britons — “systematically, car by car,” Andrés said in an interview with Reuters on April 3, while they were traveling in three marked vehicles that night. “What I know is that we were targeted deliberately, nonstop, until everybody was dead in this convoy,” he continued. “This was not just a bad-luck situation where, Oops, we dropped the bomb in the wrong place. This was over a 1.5, 1.8 kilometers, with a very defined humanitarian convoy that had signs in the top, on the roof, a very colorful logo.” Andrés emphasized that it’s “very clear who we are and what we do,” adding that the IDF knew of World Central Kitchen’s whereabouts.

The IDF’s drone strike killed seven WCK aid workers on April 1 after they unloaded 100 tons of food brought to Gaza by sea, the same day the Biden administration signed off on the transfer of thousands more bombs to Israel. The seven workers were traveling in an armored vehicle when airstrike began, Andrés told Reuters. After escaping to a new car, they were hit a second time. Then, the third vehicle was also struck. “Humanitarians and civilians should never be paying the consequences of war,” Andrés said. “This is a basic principle of humanity. At the time, this looks like it’s not a war against terrorism anymore. Seems as if this is a war against humanity itself.” Andrés went on to call for an independent investigation of the attack by the U.S. government and governments of every aid worker killed. Biden was “outraged and heartbroken” by Israel’s deadly strikes, he stated on April 3.

Following the killings, Israel’s military expressed “sincere sorrow” over the strikes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack “a tragic event in which our forces unintentionally harmed non-combatants,” he said in a video address. “This happens in war.”

Stephen Colbert replied to what he called Netanyahu’s “not exactly apologetic” statement about Israel’s devastating strike on an April 3 episode of The Late Show. “Nothing just happens,” Colbert said after reading the victims’ names. “You are responsible. If you’re answer is, ‘This happens in war,’ then maybe consider ending the war, because this is not an isolated incident.”

The late-night host reminded viewers that more than 200 international aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war, along with thousands of civilians in the region. Colbert then highlighted the nonpartisan work done by World Central Kitchen, despite their efforts being dogged at every turn. “Instead of being welcomed they have been attacked by the IDF, and Hamas has hauled members of their team in for interrogation,” he said, mirroring Andrés’s own op-ed published in the New York Times that day, “Let People Eat.” “So whatever you think should happen in Israel and Gaza, I hope we can all agree that people should be allowed to eat.”