J.E. Dyer
The Optimistic Conservative, Apr. 2, 2024
“… launching separate food-aid efforts in Gaza has been seen all along as a way of gaining leverage for outside actors over IDF ops.”
This will be two short pings. The set-up is that PM Netanyahu has acknowledged the IDF role in the strike on 1 April, in which seven aid workers for World Central Kitchen (WCK), traveling in a group of two armored vehicles and one soft-skin vehicle in central Gaza, were tragically killed in an air strike.
WCK founder José Andrés is quoted as saying the trip had been deconflicted with the IDF, which would be expected after Israel said last month that it would ensure secure conditions for the food deliveries. WCK, which transports food from a collection point in Cyprus, is working through the jetty hastily built off Gaza, just south of the existing jetty of the Gaza City port. The delivery mechanics at the jetty look inconvenient and unwieldy; basically, small barges are being towed to the new jetty through the choppy, unsheltered waters of the Eastern Mediterranean just off the coast. Barges are hard enough to deal with on inland rivers, as a recent barge-bridge collision on the Arkansas River in Oklahoma reminds us. It doesn’t get easier on the open sea.
We can, of course, feel awful about the lives lost in this event. Netanyahu says it is under investigation and there will be a full accounting.
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