President Joe Biden and the Israeli prime minister will hold a call Thursday morning after a drone strike killed seven aid workers in Gaza, including a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen.
The call is expected to be “tense,” officials say after Biden called for accountability and a swift investigation into the Israel Defense Forces’ attack on an approved aid delivery route.
“Biden is pissed,” a US official told Axios. “The temperature regarding Bibi is very high.”
World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers were delivering food to war-torn Gaza on Monday when their three-car convoy marked as humanitarian assistance for the area was hit by an Israeli “triple-touch” drone strike.
Washington-area celebrity chef José Andrés founded WCK and is a longtime Biden supporter. The president spoke with Andrés this week after the strike.
President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak Thursday morning in the first call since an IDF strike killed seven aid workers in Gaza.
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attack on a three-vehicle convoy of aid workers on Monday led to seven deaths and sparked international outrage over how Israel is engaging in a war with Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
Israel apologized for what it called “a serious mistake” and said it was investigating the incident, saying it did not “intentionally” hit the aid workers.
International outrage followed the deaths of aid workers, including Biden.
Biden will speak with Netanyahu on Thursday for the first time since the attack as tensions rise.
“I think you could feel the frustration in that statement yesterday,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday, referring to Biden’s statement in which the president asserted that Israel has not done the right thing. enough to protect civilians and humanitarian workers caught in the crosshairs of war. in Gaza.
The conflict erupted on October 7 when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and killed the largest number of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust. Israel launched a barrage of retaliatory attacks on Gaza, where Hamas is the de facto government.
Since then, pro-Palestinian groups and activists have expressed outrage and protested the Biden administration’s support for US ally Israel and have called for a ceasefire. Israel’s supporters claim that demanding a ceasefire is tantamount to saying that Israel has no right to defend itself against terrorists who want to wipe out the Jewish people.
Biden is among world leaders who want accountability for the deaths.
“I am outraged and heartbroken by the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian workers, including an American, in Gaza yesterday,” Biden wrote in a strongly worded statement about the incident. ‘They were providing food to starving civilians in the middle of a war. They were brave and selfless. Their deaths are a tragedy.”
Palestinians inspect a vehicle with the World Central Kitchen logo destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip
Biden called for an investigation and accountability after the Israeli drone strike killed Jacob Flickinger (right), a 33-year-old American-Canadian citizen, and six others.
People carry the body of one of the foreign World Central Kitchen workers who died in the airstrike as the bodies are transported to their families outside Gaza.
The president added: ‘Israel has committed to carrying out a thorough investigation into why aid workers’ vehicles were hit by airstrikes. That investigation must be rapid, it must generate accountability, and its conclusions must be made public.
The White House declined to say Wednesday whether Israel would face any consequences amid fury over the World Central Kitchen workers’ strike.
Andrés, the group’s founder, said in an interview that the IDF attacked aid workers “systematically, car by car.”
He claimed that Israel’s military forces were aware of the movements of its aid workers before their ill-fated journey into Gaza and that the deaths were not a situation where they “dropped the bomb in the wrong place.”
“This was over 1.5 or 1.8 kilometers, with a very defined humanitarian convoy that had signs on top, on the roof, a very colorful logo that we are obviously very proud of,” he said. “It’s very clear who we are and what we do.”
“Even if we were not in coordination with the IDF, no democratic country or army can attack civilians and aid workers,” he told Reuters after writing an op-ed declaring that “food is not a weapon of war.”
Jacob Flickinger, 33, had dual citizenship of the United States and Canada and died in the attack. He was a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces who served in Afghanistan.
Flickinger’s father wrote in a Facebook message paying tribute to his son: ‘My son, Jacob, was killed on Monday delivering food aid to starving families in Gaza. He died doing what he loved and serving others through his work at World Central Kitchen.’
A GoFundMe was created to help Flickinger’s partner Sandy, with whom he shared a one-year-old son, pay for flights and funeral costs, as well as ease some of the burden considering Flickinger was the only one earning.
Washington, DC celebrity chef José Andrés (pictured) founded World Central Kitchen and is a longtime Biden supporter; the two spoke this week after the strike.
A Palestinian child plays in front of the closed World Central Kitchen headquarters two days after a convoy of aid workers was attacked in an Israeli strike in Gaza.
Also among those killed in the attack were three British armed forces veterans who were serving as security for the aid mission: John Chapman, 57, James (Jim) Henderson, 33, and James Kirby, 47.
Other aid workers who died in the strike included Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, 25; Australian Lalzawmi (Zomi) Frankcom, 43; Damian Soból, 35-year-old Pole.
At least 196, including 175 UN staff and aid workers, have been killed in Gaza, according to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the attack “unconscionable” but “an inevitable result of the way the war is being conducted.”