Family and friends recall dedication of World Central Kitchen aid workers killed in Gaza

Israeli bombardment killed seven staff of the US-based food charity World Central Kitchen on April 1 in an attack. (AFP)
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Updated 04 April 2024
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Family and friends recall dedication of World Central Kitchen aid workers killed in Gaza

  • Friends and family remembered Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, 43, as a brave, selfless woman whose care for others drew her across the globe

Israeli airstrikes that killed seven aid workers in Gaza reverberated around the world, as friends and relatives mourned the losses of those who were delivering food to besieged Palestinians with the charity World Central Kitchen.
Killed were three British nationals, an Australian, a Polish national, an American-Canadian dual citizen and a Palestinian. Some had traveled the world, participating in aid efforts in the aftermath of wars, earthquakes and wildfires.
Here’s some information on those killed.
SAIFEDDIN ISSAM AYAD ABUTAHA
Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, 25, had worked for World Central Kitchen as a driver and translator since the beginning of the year, relatives said.
His brothers described him as a dedicated young man eager to help fellow Palestinians.
He’d also been a successful businessman who conducted trade with Ukraine, Egypt, China and others, brother Abdul Razzaq Abutaha said. His work made him known on the Israeli side, his brother added, which helped in coordination and approval to assist the World Central Kitchen team in unloading the ship.
Saifeddin had hoped to get married. “My mother was looking for a wife for him,” Abdul Razzaq Abu Taha said. “He was supposed to get married if the war didn’t happen.”
Saifeddin and other workers were excited about unloading the food aid, desperately needed in Gaza. The last time Saifeddin and his brother spoke, he said, they’d finished the job and he was heading home.
After hearing about the airstrikes, Abdul Razzaq Abutaha said he tried to call to see whether Saifeddin was OK.
After many attempts, he said, a stranger answered and told him, “I found this phone about 200 meters away from the car. All of the people inside are killed.”
LALZAWMI ‘ZOMI’ FRANKCOM
Friends and family remembered Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, 43, as a brave, selfless woman whose care for others drew her across the globe. For the last five years, she’d worked for Washington-based World Central Kitchen, taking her to the US, Thailand and her native Australia.
“We mourn this fine Australian who has a record of helping out her fellow citizens, whether it be internationally or whether it be through the support that she gave during the bushfires that occurred during that Black Summer,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “She is someone who clearly was concerned about her fellow humanity.”
In a statement, relatives described Frankcom as an “outstanding human being” who was “killed doing the work she loves delivering food to the people of Gaza.”
She was born in Melbourne and earned a bachelor’s from the Swinburne University of Technology. For eight years, she worked for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the nation’s largest bank.
Frankcom’s social media highlighted visits to help those in need in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Romania and Haiti.
World Central Kitchen colleague Dora Weekley, who met Frankcom responding to Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas in 2019, described her as “larger than life.”
She recalled when Frankcom was invited to walk a Hollywood red carpet, for a documentary about World Central Kitchen that was nominated for an Emmy.
“I remember getting a picture of her in a dress, saying, ‘Hold onto this forever,’” Weekley told ABC. “Because usually I’m in sweats and runners, and I’m in Pakistan or Afghanistan or, you know, she could be anywhere, and never with her hair done or makeup done.
“She worked all hours, she gave everything, and she believed in helping people who were less fortunate.”
DAMIAN SOBÓL
Damian Soból, 35, was known as a cheerful, friendly and resourceful manager who quickly rose in World Central Kitchen’s ranks.
Hailing from the southeastern Polish city of Przemyśl and studying hospitality there, Soból had been on aid missions in Ukraine, Morocco, Turkiye and, for the past six months, Gaza.
”He was a really extraordinary guy,” said Marta Wilczynska, of the Free Place Foundation, which cooperates with World Central Kitchen. “We were very proud of him.”
Wilczynska met Soból on the Polish side of the border with Ukraine, a few days after Russia’s February 2022 invasion. He spoke English well and was a translator, and as a skilled manager, he could organize work in any condition, she said.
“Always smiling, always so helpful, he loved this job. I felt I had a brother in him,” Wilczynska said.
Free Place Foundation President Mikolaj Rykowski said Soból was “the man for every task — he could overcome every difficulty.”
Posting on Facebook, Przemyśl Mayor Wojciech Bakun said of Soból’s death that there are “no words to describe how people who knew this fantastic young man feel now.”
JOHN CHAPMAN, JAMES HENDERSON AND JAMES KIRBY
The three British victims were military veterans who had been in dangerous situations before. They died providing security for the World Central Kitchen aid mission.
Kirby, 47, came from the port city of Bristol in southwest England and served in Bosnia and Afghanistan with the British Army before moving into private security work. According to his LinkedIn profile, he worked as a players’ escort at the 2021 Wimbledon tennis tournament.
Kirby’s cousin Amy Roxburgh-Barry called him an “all-round gentleman” who was planning to give his mother and aunt a surprise cruise after he returned from Gaza.
“It’s just devastating that he’s fought in these wars and come home with not a scratch, and then he goes out to do something helpful, and that’s what happens,” she told Sky News.
Chapman, 57, was a Royal Marines veteran whose family said in a statement that they were devastated to lose him.
“He died trying to help people and was subject to an inhumane act,” they said. “He was an incredible father, husband, son and brother.”
Henderson, who was 33 and known as Jim, was a former Royal Marine from Cornwall in southwest England, news outlets there reported. Sky News reported that he was due to leave Gaza on Monday, the day he was killed.
JACOB FLICKINGER
Jacob Flickinger was a 33-year-old dual citizen of the United States and veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces.
He served for more than 10 years and was deployed to Afghanistan, the military said in a statement.
A GoFundMe page raising money to help his family said he had a partner and 1-year-old son at home.
“Jacob was a great human being, he was a great soldier, he had a wonderful heart,” his mother, Sylvie Labrecque, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “He was very much involved with strong intensity in whatever he was doing in life, and he believed very strongly that the work he was doing was important, especially in this case with starvation out there.”
In Acapulco, Mexico, restaurants posted on social media that Flickinger was among workers who brought relief to their neighborhoods last fall after Hurricane Otis slammed the Pacific coast.
Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly called for a full investigation and said in a post on X that strikes on humanitarian personnel were “absolutely unacceptable.”
Speaking Wednesday in Brussels before a NATO meeting, she repeated the call for an investigation and said she had reached out to the Israeli foreign minister.
“Israel needs to respect humanitarian law, and we will make sure that is the case,” she said.

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Israel accuses Turkiye of ‘malice’ over UN arms embargo call

Updated 05 November 2024
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Israel accuses Turkiye of ‘malice’ over UN arms embargo call

  • Turkiye’s letter, seen by AFP Monday, called the “staggering” civilian death toll “unconscionable and intolerable”

UNITED NATIONS, United States: Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday accused Turkiye of “malice,” after Ankara submitted a letter signed by 52 countries calling for a halt in arms deliveries to Israel over the war in Gaza.
“What else can be expected from a country whose actions are driven by malice in an attempt to create conflicts with the support of the ‘Axis of Evil’ countries,” said Ambassador Danny Danon, using a pejorative term to describe the Arab countries who signed the letter.
Turkiye’s foreign ministry said Sunday it had submitted the letter to the United Nations, with the signatories including the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Israel has faced international criticism for the conduct of its war in Gaza, where its offensive has killed at least 43,374 people, most of them civilians, according to health ministry figures which the United Nations considers to be reliable.
The war was sparked by Palestinian armed group Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
“This letter is further proof that the UN is led by some sinister countries and not by the liberal countries that support the values of justice and morality,” said Danon.
Turkiye’s letter, seen by AFP Monday, called the “staggering” civilian death toll “unconscionable and intolerable.”
“We therefore make this collective call for immediate steps to be taken to halt the provision or transfer of arms,  munitions and related equipment to Israel, the occupying Power, in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the letter said.
It added that the UN Security Council (UNSC) must take steps to ensure compliance with its resolutions “which are being flagrantly violated.”
The UNSC called in March for a ceasefire in Gaza, but has struggled to speak with a unified voice on the issue due to the veto wielded by Israel’s key ally, the United States.
Asked about the joint letter on Monday, the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he had not seen it.


Gaza aid situation not much improved, US says as deadline for Israel looms

Updated 05 November 2024
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Gaza aid situation not much improved, US says as deadline for Israel looms

  • Aid workers and UN officials say humanitarian conditions continue to be dire in Gaza

WASHINGTON: Israel has taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but has so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation in the enclave, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday, as a deadline set by the US to improve the situation approaches.
The Biden administration told Israel in an Oct. 13 letter it had 30 days to take specific steps to address the dire humanitarian crisis in the strip, which has been pummeled for more than a year by Israeli ground and air operations that Israel says are aimed at rooting out Hamas militants.
Aid workers and UN officials say humanitarian conditions continue to be dire in Gaza.
“As of today, the situation has not significantly turned around. We have seen an increase in some measurements. We’ve seen an increase in the number of crossings that are open. But just if you look at the stipulated recommendations in the letter, those have not been met,” Miller said.
Miller said the results so far were “not good enough” but stressed that the 30-day period had not elapsed.
He declined to say what consequences Israel would face if it failed to implement the recommendations.
“What I can tell you that we will do is we will follow the law,” he said.
Washington, Israel’s main supplier of weapons, has frequently pressed Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza since the war with Hamas began with the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.
The Oct. 13 letter, sent by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, said a failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing the measures on aid access may have implications for US policy and law.
Section 620i of the US Foreign Assistance Act prohibits military aid to countries that impede delivery of US humanitarian assistance.
Israel on Monday said it was canceling its agreement with the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), citing accusations that some UNRWA staff had Hamas links.
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said Israel had scaled back the entry of aid trucks into the Gaza Strip to an average of 30 trucks a day, the lowest in a long time.
An Israeli government spokesman said no limit had been imposed on aid entering Gaza, with 47 aid trucks entering northern Gaza on Sunday alone.
Israeli statistics reviewed by Reuters last week showed that aid shipments allowed into Gaza in October remained at their lowest levels since October 2023.


Israel hostages forum demands probe in secrets leak case

Updated 05 November 2024
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Israel hostages forum demands probe in secrets leak case

  • “The (hostage) families demand an investigation against all those suspected of sabotage and undermining state security,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement

JERUSALEM: A Gaza hostages campaign group called Monday for an investigation into the alleged leak of confidential documents by an ex-aide to Israel’s premier, which may have undermined efforts to secure their release.
A court announced Sunday that Eliezer Feldstein, a former aide to Benjamin Netanyahu, had been detained along with three others for allegedly leaking documents to foreign media.
The case has prompted the opposition to question whether Netanyahu was involved in the leak — an allegation denied by his office.
“The (hostage) families demand an investigation against all those suspected of sabotage and undermining state security,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.
“Such actions, especially during wartime, endanger the hostages, jeopardize their chances of return and abandon them to the risk of being killed by Hamas terrorists.”
The forum represents most of the families of the 97 hostages still held in Gaza after they were seized in the unprecedented October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war.
The Israeli military says 34 of them are dead.
“The suspicions suggest that individuals associated with the prime minister acted to carry out one of the greatest frauds in the country’s history,” the forum said.
“This is a moral low point like no other. It is a severe blow to the remaining trust between the government and its citizens.”
Critics have long accused Netanyahu of stalling in truce negotiations and prolonging the war to appease his far-right coalition partners.
Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet and the army launched an investigation into the breach in September after two newspapers, British weekly The Jewish Chronicle and Germany’s Bild tabloid, published articles based on the classified military documents.
One article claimed a document had been uncovered showing that then Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar — later killed by Israel — and the hostages in Gaza would be smuggled into Egypt through the Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border.
The other was based on what was said to be an internal Hamas leadership memo on Sinwar’s strategy to hamper talks toward the liberation of hostages.
The Israeli court said the release of the documents ran the risk of causing “severe harm to state security.”
“As a result, the ability of security bodies to achieve the objective of releasing the hostages, as part of the war goals, could have been compromised,” it added.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people on Israeli soil, mostly civilians, according to AFP’s count based on official Israeli data, including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in Gaza.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has so far killed at least 43,341 people, a majority of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN considers these figures as reliable.
Meanwhile, late on Monday Netanyahu asked the attorney general to begin investigating other alleged leaks from cabinet meetings during the war.
“Since the beginning of the war, we have witnessed an incessant flood of serious leaks and revelations of state secrets,” he said in a letter to the attorney general, which was posted on his Telegram channel.
“Therefore, I am appealing to you to immediately order the investigation of the leaks in general.”


UNRWA ban in Gaza ‘will not make Israel safer’: WHO

Updated 05 November 2024
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UNRWA ban in Gaza ‘will not make Israel safer’: WHO

  • “This ban will not make Israel safer. It will only deepen the suffering of the people of Gaza and increase the risk of disease outbreaks,” Tedros says

GENEVA: The chief of the World Health Organization on Monday denounced Israel’s decision to cut ties with the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, saying it would not make the country safer while increasing civilian suffering in Gaza.
“Let me be clear: There is simply no alternative to UNRWA,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a video posted on X.
“This ban will not make Israel safer. It will only deepen the suffering of the people of Gaza and increase the risk of disease outbreaks,” Tedros added.
His comments came after Israel said it had formally notified the UN of its decision to sever ties with UNRWA, after Israeli lawmakers backed the move last week.
The suspension of the agency, which coordinates nearly all aid in war-ravaged Gaza, sparked global condemnation including from key Israeli backer the United States.
The move is expected to come into force in late January, with the UN Security Council warning it would have severe consequences for millions of Palestinians.
Israel has accused a dozen UNRWA employees of taking part in the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, the deadliest in Israeli history.
A series of probes found some “neutrality related issues” at UNRWA but said Israel had not provided evidence for its chief allegations.
The agency, which employs 13,000 people in Gaza, fired nine employees after an internal probe found that they “may have been involved in the armed attacks of 7 October.”
UNRWA, which was established in 1949 after the first Arab-Israeli conflict following Israel’s creation a year earlier, provides assistance to nearly six million Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
“Every day, it provides thousands of medical consultations and vaccinated hundreds of children,” Tedros said, adding that many humanitarian partners rely on UNRWA’s logistical networks to get supplies into Gaza.
He said that the UNRWA staff his organization had worked with were “dedicated health and humanitarian professionals who work tirelessly for their communities under unimaginable circumstances.”
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,374 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations considers to be reliable.


GCC’s chief urges regional collective action at counter-terrorism conference in Kuwait

Updated 04 November 2024
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GCC’s chief urges regional collective action at counter-terrorism conference in Kuwait

  • Meeting gathers ministers, UN agency representatives, international organizations

KUWAIT CITY: Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General Jasem Al-Budaiwi addressed a high-level conference on counter-terrorism and border security on Monday.

The conference, which is being held in Kuwait and ends on Tuesday, has been organized by Kuwait in partnership with Tajikistan and the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism.

It gathered ministers, UN agency representatives, and international and regional organizations to help bolster international counter-terrorism efforts.

Al-Budaiwi said: “This important regional conference focuses on border security and combating terrorism, which are vital issues requiring collective action.”

Al-Budaiwi spoke of the GCC’s achievements in security collaboration, including information-sharing and laws targeting terrorism financing.

He added: “The GCC countries have built a common security system through joint agreements, enhancing cooperation in border protection and addressing security threats.”

He stressed the region’s proactive approach in utilizing technology and training personnel to safeguard borders against transnational threats like arms and human trafficking.