The deaths of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers at the hands of Israeli troops was “unforgivable,” the organization’s founder, José Andrés, said on Sunday, assailing Israel for waging what now seems to be “a war against humanity itself.”
In an emotional interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Andrés reiterated his calls for an independent investigation into the April 1 airstrikes on his organization’s aid convoy in the Gaza Strip. The deaths drew global condemnation and prompted President Biden to suggest for the first time that he could change policy toward Israel if it does not alter course in its war against Hamas, which Gazan health officials say has killed more than 32,000 people and brought the besieged enclave to the brink of famine.
“This doesn’t seem a war against terror,” Mr. Andrés said. “This doesn’t seem, anymore, a war about defending Israel. This really, at this point, seems it’s a war against humanity itself.”
Mr. Andrés said he believed that Mr. Biden could support Israel’s right to defend itself while also defending the rights of Palestinians “not to die just trying to be getting a piece of bread.”
“I think both truths can live in the same place,” Mr. Andrés said. “You can be a friend of Israel, and at the same time you can be telling your partner in the Middle East, you cannot be conducting war in such a way.”
Mr. Andrés said that when he spoke with Mr. Biden after the deadly strikes, he spoke on behalf of the thousands of civilians who have been affected by the war, not just the World Central Kitchen workers killed last week.
“This is happening for way too long,” he said. “It’s been six months of targeting anything that moves.”
Israel said the deaths of the aid workers — one a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, and others from Australia, Britain, Gaza and Poland — were a “grave mistake” that resulted in the dismissal and reprimand of military personnel after a preliminary investigation found a number of failures and broken protocols.
But Mr. Andrés said that the investigation should be “much more deeper,” and that “the perpetrator cannot be investigating himself.” He reiterated his stance that the workers, whose vehicles were clearly marked and whose movements had been coordinated with Israeli forces, became targets.
“Obviously this was targeted,” said Mr. Andrés, who became visibly emotional as he talked about workers he knew personally. “We could argue that the first one, let’s say, was a mistake. The second? The third?”
John F. Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the United States was still going through Israel’s investigation, and would “reserve judgment” until it was completed.
He added that while recent announcements from Israel, such as opening new aid crossings and accountability measures in response to the World Central Kitchen strikes, were “welcome and important, can’t be the end of it.”
“We’ve got to see sustained changes in the way they’re operating on the ground and the way they are allowing humanitarian assistance to get in, unmolested,” he said. (COGAT, the Israeli agency that oversees aid deliveries into Gaza, said later on social media that 322 humanitarian aid trucks were inspected and transferred to Gaza on Sunday, which it said was the most in a single day since the start of the war.)
Mr. Kirby acknowledged that the people of Israel face continued threats, including from Hamas and Iran, and “still have a need to defend themselves.” But, he added, “How they do that matters,” and he reiterated that the United States could change its policy toward Israel if its tactics do not change.
But Mr. Andrés suggested on Sunday that the United States has been moving too slowly, and should have already taken action over Israel’s conduct of the war. “I think ‘there will be consequences’ is part of the problem,” he said, adding that there “should be already consequences.”
Israeli forces need a “real reckoning on how they conduct war,” Mr. Andrés said.
“Who are the enemy?” he added. “Who really are they fighting?”