Admin I Wednesday, April 03, 2024
GAZA, Palestine – Anera, one of the humanitarian organisation supplying food, medicines and other essential items to the starving population in Palestine has put further operation in the besieged Gaza Strip on hold.
Anera said it was forced to suspend operation, following delibrate targeting of seven aid workers working for World Central Kitche, WCK by Israeli.
The convoy was targetted three times by Israeli airstrikes. The first was targeted few meteres from the wareheous where WCK workers had loaded tons of humanitarian items for delivery.
The convoy according WCK stopped to transfer the injured into a second armored vehicle, which was equally hit by another bomb, the third vehicle that made its way out of the road to avoid the Israeli bombs was destroyed by a third strike killing all seven aid workers, 6 foreigners and one Palestinian in the strikes.
“The killing of WCK humanitarians, occurring less than a month after the still-unexplained killing of Anera staff member Mousa Shawwa, alongside the loss of numerous other aid workers and their families, has led our team to conclude that delivering aid safely is no longer feasible”, Anera said, adding “for the safety of staff and their families, we are suspending Anera’s work in Gaza”.
Since the outset of the war on October 7, Anera’s Gaza team has provided an average of 150,000 meals daily (in collaboration with WCK), millions of medical treatments, and thousands of other critical emergency aid items, Anera said in a statement.
It ntoed that while, it understand the severe consequences this suspension will have on the Palestinian population, it said that the escalating risks associated with aid delivery leave us with no choice but to halt operations until our staff regain confidence that they can do their work without undue risk.
“In nearly six months of conflict, this marks the first instance where our Palestinian staff in Gaza, enduring continuously hazardous conditions, have deemed the risk to their safety, and that of their families, intolerable.
“Anera’s longstanding presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, spanning over 55 years and enduring through multiple conflicts, underscores the gravity of this decision. The unprecedented scale of the current conflict and the disregard for international law necessitate this historic pause in our operations”, the group said.
