Israel is increasingly coming under international criticism due to the high number of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip. A dispute has broken out between Warsaw and the government in Jerusalem. The news at a glance.
After Israel’s deadly attack on foreign aid workers in the Gaza Strip, six of the seven bodies were returned to Egypt. This was reported by the state-affiliated television station Al-Kahira News. Ambulances brought the bodies from Gaza to Egypt via the Rafah crossing. The bodies of the victims from Great Britain, Poland and Australia, as well as a US-Canadian, should be returned to their home countries. The Palestinian driver’s body was handed over to his family for burial in Gaza.
Egyptian security circles said that representatives of the respective embassies should first receive the bodies in Cairo. The transfer is then planned to take place via the airport in the Egyptian capital.
On Tuesday, seven employees of World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an air strike by the Israeli army. The vehicles were marked with the organization’s logo. Israel’s Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi described the attack as a “serious mistake” that should not have happened. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, citing military circles, that the commanders and armed forces involved acted against instructions and rules.
WCK founder José Andrés wrote in an article for the Israeli newspaper “Yediot Ahronot”: “The Israeli government must open land routes for food and medicine today. It must stop killing civilians and humanitarian workers today.” The attack on the WCK vehicles was not “some unfortunate mistake in the fog of war. It was a direct attack on clearly marked vehicles whose movements were known to the (Israeli army).”
Tensions between Poland and Israel
After the death of a Polish employee of the aid organization World Central Kitchen in the Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip, a dispute has broken out between Warsaw and the government in Jerusalem. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticized his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu’s reaction to the incident and a statement by Ambassador Jakov Livne. “Mr. Prime Minister Netanyahu, Mr. Ambassador Livne, the vast majority of Poles have shown solidarity with Israel after the Hamas attack. Today you are putting that solidarity to the test. The tragic attack on the volunteers and your reaction arouse understandable anger,” wrote Tusk on the platform X (formerly Twitter). Livne later relented and wrote that he was trying to contact the Polish victim’s family.
The Israeli ambassador Jakov Livne, in turn, triggered a wave of outrage in Poland after the volunteer’s death with accusations of anti-Semitism. Livne was referring to a post by opposition politician Krzysztof Bosak from the right-wing extremist Konfederacja on the X platform. Bosak had pointed out that the convoy attacked by Israel was marked as humanitarian aid. “It appears that the Israeli leadership’s goal is to terrorize humanitarian organizations and increase famine among Palestinians,” Bosak wrote. “It has a name: war crimes.”
In his reaction, Livne wrote that Bosak still refuses to condemn the October 7 massacres. His party colleague Grzegorz Braun also put out a Hanukkah menorah in the Polish parliament with a fire extinguisher. “Bottom line: anti-Semites will always be anti-Semites, and Israel remains a democratic Jewish state that fights for its right to exist,” said Livne.
In a later post, Livne moderated his tone. He wrote that he called the administrative head of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship, where the killed helper Sobol came from, expressed his condolences and asked her for the contact details of the relatives.
Meanwhile, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that if Israeli media reports about the background to the incident were confirmed, then Israel would have to apologize to the victims’ families and pay them compensation.
The Foreign Ministry in Warsaw has asked Israel’s ambassador for an interview. The conversation should focus on the “new situation in Polish-Israeli relations and the moral, political and financial responsibility” for the incident, said Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna.
Sunak on Israel’s government: Situation increasingly intolerable
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has appealed to the Israeli government and called for a full investigation following the deadly attack on foreign aid workers in the Gaza Strip. Sunak told the British newspaper “Sun” that he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu very clearly in a conversation that the situation was becoming increasingly intolerable. Significantly more aid supplies should reach the Gaza Strip. Closer cooperation with aid organizations is also needed so that something like this doesn’t happen again.
In the interview with the Sun, Sunak was asked whether he supported calls to stop supplying weapons to Israel until help gets to Gaza. They have always had a very cautious export approval system, replied Sunak. There are rules and procedures that they adhere to. “And I have consistently made it clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu since the beginning of the conflict that we of course support Israel’s right to protect itself and its people against attacks by Hamas, but that in doing so they must adhere to international humanitarian law.”
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
