Before WCK strike, aid groups had warned of peril to Gaza relief workers

CAIRO — For months, aid groups in Gaza warned that the system used to coordinate their deliveries with Israel’s military was broken, putting the lives of relief workers at risk.

Then, on Monday, Israeli forces killed seven employees of the nonprofit World Central Kitchen, six of whom were foreign nationals, as they traveled in their convoy in central Gaza — movements the organization had coordinated with Israel in advance.

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Over the past six months, humanitarian organizations, including Doctors Without Borders and the U.N. relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), have publicized at least nine accounts of aid convoys or buildings coming under attack, despite their routes or coordinates being shared with Israeli authorities in advance. Nearly 200 Palestinian aid workers have been killed, according to Humanitarian Outcomes, an organization that tracks aid-worker deaths.

“What’s increasingly clear is that the deconfliction process is a fiction,” said Ciarán Donnelly, a senior vice president at the International Rescue Committee, which operates in Gaza. “It doesn’t provide any guarantees of safety.”

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