José Andrés unloads meals packages delivered by World Central Kitchen in Kherson, Ukraine in November 2022.

Efrem Lukatsky/AP

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Efrem Lukatsky/AP

José Andrés unloads meals packages delivered by World Central Kitchen in Kherson, Ukraine in November 2022.

Efrem Lukatsky/AP

The support group World Central Kitchen stated Tuesday that it’s pausing its efforts to feed Palestinians in Gaza after seven of its staff have been killed by an Israeli strike.

The nonprofit said in a statement that the workforce was hit whereas leaving a warehouse the place they’d unloaded greater than 100 tons of humanitarian meals support dropped at Gaza by sea, a route that World Central Kitchen helped establish simply final month.

The group stated the convoy had been touring in a deconflicted zone, in armored automobiles branded with their brand and after coordinating actions with Israel’s navy, which now says it would conduct an investigation of the incident “at the highest levels.” Erin Gore, the CEO of World Central Kitchen, known as it a “targeted attack.”

“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war,” she stated.

The U.S.-based group, which was based by celeb chef José Andrés and his spouse Patricia in 2010, delivers meals to folks on the entrance strains of pure and humanitarian disasters around the globe.

It has been working on the ground within the area since Hamas–led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and killed greater than 1,200 folks, in accordance with the Israeli authorities. Israeli’s navy response in Gaza has killed greater than 32,000 Palestinians, in accordance with the Gaza Ministry of Health, displaced an estimated 1.7 million and left the territory on the brink of famine.

WCK said last week that it had supplied some 42 million meals to folks in Gaza over 175 days, calling the state of affairs there “the most dire we’ve ever seen or experienced in our 15 year history.”

“More and more people, particularly children, are dying of starvation,” Gore and Andrés stated in a joint assertion. “We’ve known for months that famine is imminent and the situation is getting worse.”

With food scarce and malnutrition rising, worldwide consultants have warned that some 30% of Gaza’s inhabitants is already going through “catastrophic” levels of hunger and that northern Gaza might officially see famine anytime between now and May.

World Central Kitchen is not the one group working to get meals into Gaza, the place support deliveries are severely restricted by Israeli border restrictions, logistical challenges and ongoing combating. But it has performed a serious function within the humanitarian response, together with sending two shipments of a whole lot of tons of meals to Gaza by sea.

The second such cargo — stocked with shelf-stable objects like rice, canned greens and proteins, in addition to dates in honor of Ramadan — left Cyprus on Saturday. The Cypriot international ministry stated Tuesday that some 100 tons of support had been unloaded in Gaza earlier than WCK introduced it was pausing its operations within the enclave, and the remaining 240 tons can be returned to Cyprus, in accordance with the Associated Press.

Just days in the past, WCK vowed it might preserve pushing to get meals into Gaza “until there is substantial aid getting in via land.” Now these plans are up within the air — it says it is going to be “making decisions about the future of our work soon.”

In the meantime, this is what else to know in regards to the group:

WCK brings meals to the entrance strains of disasters

People line up for meals ready by a World Central Kitchen employee in Kupiansk within the Kharkiv area of Ukraine in December 2022.

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

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Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

People line up for meals ready by a World Central Kitchen employee in Kupiansk within the Kharkiv area of Ukraine in December 2022.

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Andrés is a Spanish-American chef recognized for his quite a few U.S. eating places, PBS journey sequence and humanitarian work of over a decade.

He traveled to Haiti after it was struck by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake in 2010, cooking for displaced folks in camps — an advert hoc reduction mission that helped set World Central Kitchen in movement.

WCK has responded to an extended record of pure and man-made disasters ever since, working with native companions on the bottom.

It served greater than 20,000 meals within the Houston space after Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and one other 3.7 million throughout Puerto Rico within the wake of Hurricane Maria, for which Andrés was named the James Beard humanitarian of the 12 months in 2018 (seven years after successful its “outstanding chef” award).

He told NPR that very same 12 months that he anticipated to see extra cooks getting concerned in catastrophe response, since “restaurant people” are significantly nicely suited to managing chaos.

“What we are very good at is understanding the problem and adapting,” he stated. “And so a problem becomes an opportunity … We’re practical. We’re efficient. And we can do it quicker, faster and better than anybody.”

The organization has grown considerably through the years and expanded its efforts to focus not solely on catastrophe response however resilience coaching and longer-term group wants, together with opening a culinary college in Port-au-Prince a number of years after the earthquake that began it.

It has fed survivors of main wildfires in California and Hawaii, federal workers in D.C. throughout the 2019 authorities shutdown and stranded cruise ship passengers throughout the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, all through which it supplied meals for entrance line staff and different susceptible teams within the U.S. in addition to Spain, Indonesia and the Dominican Republic.

It delivered sizzling meals and contemporary produce to a Buffalo, N.Y., neighborhood after 10 folks have been killed in a mass shooting at a supermarket, and distributed food after the Uvalde college taking pictures in Texas.

More just lately, WCK supplied greater than 20 million meals to folks impacted by the twin earthquakes in Turkey and Syria final April. And it has responded to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine by offering millions of meals to people there, first in hard-hit inhabitants facilities and neighboring nations, and more and more in additional distant and susceptible areas.

This isn’t the primary time WCK has misplaced staff in a battle zone

Workers hug on Tuesday after recovering the our bodies of World Central Kitchen workers who have been killed by Israeli air strikes in Rafah, Gaza.

Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

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Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

Workers hug on Tuesday after recovering the our bodies of World Central Kitchen workers who have been killed by Israeli air strikes in Rafah, Gaza.

Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

World Central Kitchen has misplaced staff earlier than.

Several workforce members have been killed in Ukraine in recent times, in accordance with the group.

It stated in June {that a} 60-year-old volunteer named Igor was killed when Russian shelling hit his condo constructing in Kharkiv, and that two different volunteers, Sardor and Viktoria, had been killed in a strike in Chuhuiv the earlier July. (The group solely recognized them by their first names.)

Andrés told NPR’s Morning Edition in December that WCK had misplaced a complete of six folks in Ukraine.

“As a cook, as a chef, when I founded this organization, I never expected that this will happen,” he stated. “And I almost wanted to pull World Central Kitchen immediately out of Ukraine. But the locals told me: ‘José, You cannot leave. We need you. We need your organization.'”

While battle zones are inherently harmful, the group has additionally confronted criticism over its security file up to now.

In December, Bloomberg published a story alleging — amongst different accusations — that Andrés seemed the opposite manner on issues of workers security, together with demanding that workers ship a meals truck into components of Turkey that native officers had declared “no-gos” as a consequence of landslides.

Andrés instructed NPR that catastrophe and battle zones include dangers, and the group would not “push anybody to go.”

“Obviously, it’s people that maybe they don’t feel safe doing this job, but then they shouldn’t be in these kind of humanitarian situations,” he added. “But from there to say that José Andrés puts people in danger — I’d never be able to tell anybody to do what I’m not willing to do on my own.”

The group has gained awards and confronted upheaval

World Central Kitchen introduced meals to the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian in September 2019, one in every of many pure disasters to which it is responded.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP by way of Getty Images

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World Central Kitchen introduced meals to the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian in September 2019, one in every of many pure disasters to which it is responded.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP by way of Getty Images

WCK has earned loads of accolades for its work through the years, however has additionally just lately weathered a string of scandals.

Andrés was awarded the 2015 National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama and has twice been named one in every of TIME’s most influential folks, amongst them. A handful of Democratic lawmakers nominated WCK and Andrés himself for the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this 12 months.

The nonprofit — which operates on non-governmental contributions — has grown exponentially since its founding. It introduced in more than $500 million in contributions and grants in 2022, which the New York Times reports was a fourfold enhance from the 12 months earlier than.

While WCK will get good scores on watchdog websites like Charity Navigator and Charity Watch, there have been some issues and criticisms raised just lately about the place precisely that cash goes — together with from throughout the group itself.

WCK announced last June that because it was spending some $2 million a day in Ukraine, it “learned of suspected instances of fraud” and commissioned a legislation agency to analyze. It in the end confirmed situations of fraud that amounted to a number of million {dollars}, which the group known as “unacceptable, but still represents a tiny percentage of the $432 million we spent feeding people impacted by war.”

It acknowledged it might have invested extra in its inner operations to find “bad actors,” and stated it was making modifications amongst personnel and companions in each Ukraine and Turkey consequently — in addition to implementing further safeguards to fight fraud, like an nameless tip line.

The group has additionally grown in measurement, now counting hundreds of volunteers and 94 staff, in accordance with 2022 filings.

Humanitarian leaders are condemning the strike

United Nations workers members collect Tuesday round a World Central Kitchen automobile that was hit by an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah in Gaza.

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AFP by way of Getty Images

United Nations workers members collect Tuesday round a World Central Kitchen automobile that was hit by an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah in Gaza.

AFP by way of Getty Images

WCK stated the seven staff killed within the Israeli strike included a Palestinian and residents of Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom and Canada — with one a twin citizen of the U.S.

U.S. and international leaders in addition to worldwide organizations are providing their condolences and condemnations, and calling for an unbiased investigation into the Israeli navy strike.

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees within the Near East (UNRWA) — which has misplaced a minimum of 176 employees in Gaza — stated the group gives “much needed food assistance to a starving population.”

He stated humanitarian staff are #NotATarget, a hashtag that different human rights teams and public officers are utilizing of their posts in regards to the assault.

Andrés wrote on X that he’s heartbroken and grieving for the family members of these killed, whom he described as “people … angels.”

“The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing,” he stated. “It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon. No more innocent lives lost. Peace starts with our shared humanity. It needs to start now.”