Making it possible for civilians in a war zone to eat is a complicated, often logistically fraught process, yet one ultimately protected and respected via the rules of international law. But for the last several months of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military offensive on the Gaza Strip, this hasn’t been the case.
After news broke Tuesday of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers being killed in Gaza in Israeli airstrikes, the outrage and support for celebrity chef Jose Andres’ team, which was traveling after delivering food aid to displaced Gazans, has been profound. These aid workers, more so than the near hundreds of aid workers from the United Nations or Arab nations previously killed in Gaza, were given the grace of being described as “heroes” and their killing declared an “outrage” by world leaders.
The process of deconflicting aid deliveries in a conflict zone is a harsh, often messy, yet common reality of war.
Now, we wait to see if we have reached critical mass on outrage, to help bring about a cease-fire in a war that has killed more than 32,900 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them women and children (according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count).
The process of deconflicting aid deliveries in a conflict zone is a harsh, often messy, yet common reality of war. While Russian President Vladimir Putin continues his imperialist ambitions with the invasion of Ukraine, both countries have worked with the United Nations to establish a narrow but effective deconfliction channel to make a basic effort to spare aid convoys. Russia is one of the worse violators of humanitarian laws, according to reports, so the fact that it is more effective than Israel’s efforts to protect civilians in Gaza, even considering the more restricted space of the tiny blockaded Gaza Strip, is in itself cause for alarm.
When aid workers are killed in the course of a conflict, the…
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