Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has demanded accountability from Israel over the death of an Australian woman Zomi Frankcom, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. Frankcom was working with World Central Kitchen, a group that was providing humanitarian aid to people in Gaza.
The group said that seven of its workers were killed and included citizens of Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom and a US-Canada dual citizen.
The group had brought a new shipload of food into northern Gaza which has been pushed on the brink of famine by Israel’s offensive.
In a statement, the group said that the team was leaving a warehouse in central Gaza in two armoured cars after unloading humanitarian food aid when they were hit despite having coordinated movements with the Israeli military.
Celebrity chef José Andrés, the organisation’s founder, said on X that “several of our sisters and brothers” were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Monday.
Footage on social media has shown bodies of the 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.
The World Central Kitchen provides meals to disaster-struck regions and communities. It is one of the few aid organisations delivering desperately needed food in Gaza where 2.2 million people do not have enough to eat and is on the verge of a famine.
The Israeli government has said that it was a review “to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.”
Meanwhile, three aid ships from Cyprus arrived earlier Monday carrying some 400 tonnes of food and supplies organised by the charity and the United Arab Emirates, the group’s second shipment after a pilot run last month. The Israeli military was involved in coordinating both deliveries.
Earlier, the UN group had said that 173 of its workers had been killed in Gaza in the violence.
With inputs from AP
