News - Middle East: The World Central Kitchen (WCK) says one of its Palestinian aid workers has been killed in Gaza, marking another loss for the organization four months after an Israeli airstrike killed seven of its team members.

The US-based non-profit charity on Thursday announced in a post on X that one of its Palestinian members, Nadi Sallout, was killed near Dayr al-Balah in Gaza on Wednesday night, and he was believed to be off-duty when he lost his life. Sallout was part of the charity's warehouse operations in Rafah.

“He was an integral member of our warehouse team from the early days of our response in Rafah and a humanitarian at his very core. We are still learning the details of this tragedy, but believe he was off duty at the time,” WCK further added.

According to the charity’s announcement, WCK’s Field Kitchens are serving "tens of thousands of meals" each day in Mawasi and Dayr al-Balah to displaced Palestinians seeking refuge in the area at the many makeshift camps across southern and central Gaza.

"Our distribution teams spread out to ensure food gets to families in need at the many makeshift camps across southern and central Gaza," it noted.

The World Central Kitchen warned in an update posted last week that the situation in Gaza continues to “worsen,” saying many of its kitchens in the region have had to stop cooking while others have been cut off from their aid.

“Areas near our kitchens have become the focal point of Israeli military operations. As a result, we can no longer get critical resupplies of ingredients and equipment to several WCK-supported community kitchens,” the organization said in its update on July 30.

On April 1, three Israeli air strikes hit a convoy of aid vehicles traveling through Gaza, killing seven WCK staff, including citizens of the United States, Australia, Britain and Poland.

The World Central Kitchen said its aid workers were traveling in a “deconflicted zone” in two armored cars branded with the charity’s logo as well as “a soft skin vehicle.”

The attack drew global outrage and according to Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, the Israeli military “intentionally killed” the WCK aid workers.

In late April, Erin Gore, the CEO of WCK, emphasized the "dire" humanitarian conditions in Gaza and declared the resumption of aid efforts operations after weeks "with the same energy, dignity, and focus on feeding as many people as possible."

The UN and humanitarian NGOs have warned of serious food insecurity facing Gazans as a high risk of famine looms over the entire Gaza Strip amid the relentless Israeli airstrikes. 

The Tel Aviv regime has so far killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women, and children, in Gaza since October, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Source: Press TV

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