Celebrity chef and humanitarian José Andres said after last week’s Israeli drone attack that killed seven aid workers from his charity organization World Central Kitchen that Israel was “an attack on humanity itself”. He claimed that he was waging a war against the United States.
“This is no longer about the seven men and women of World Central Kitchen who died in this unfortunate event. This has been happening for far too long. Six months of continuing to target anything that could move. Andres said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that aired Sunday.
“This no longer seems like a war on terror. This no longer seems like a war to protect Israel. This really seems like a war against humanity itself at this point,” he continued.
He said he is grateful to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for swiftly investigating the incident, but believes a deeper, independent investigation is needed.
“This is a very complicated matter, but the investigation should go much deeper,” Andres said. “And I say the perpetrator cannot investigate himself.”
Last Monday, seven World Central Kitchen employees were killed while leaving a warehouse in central Gaza. Their deaths sparked immediate scrutiny of Israel’s wartime operations in Gaza and the level of precautions taken to avoid the deaths of civilians and humanitarian workers.
A few days later, the Israeli military announced a preliminary investigation showing that the military had mistakenly believed a convoy carrying workers who were informing the military of their movements was armed Hamas fighters. Authorities fired two officers and disciplined others.
The Israeli military said last week that “the attack on the support vehicle was a grave error resulting from a serious failure resulting from misidentification, poor decision-making, and an attack contrary to standard operating procedures.”
Andres argued that the IDF cannot immediately name Hamas.
“You can’t just bring Hamas into the problem every time something happens,” he said.
The war between Israel and the US-designated terrorist organization Hamas has been raging for nearly six months since Hamas’ surprise invasion of southern Israel on October 7th. Hamas attacks have left more than 1,100 people dead and about 250 hostages injured in Israel.
About 100 of those hostages were returned during a week-long ceasefire late last year, and an estimated 100 others are believed to still be alive in Gaza.
Israel quickly launched a military operation in October to destroy Hamas, and more than 32,700 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since early October.
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