Biden ‘outraged’ at Israel over Gaza aid convoy deaths

The bodies of six World Central Kitchen workers who were killed in Gaza were taken across the border into Egypt, Dr. Khaled Zayed, head of Egyptian Red Crescent of North Sinai, confirmed to NBC News.

There are no additional details available on how they will be repatriated to their home countries.

Jagan Champ, CEO of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said yesterday that the Palestine Red Crescent Society facilitated getting the workers to the Rafah crossing.

Chef José Andrés urged Israel to change course on how its conducting the war in Gaza in a New York Times column, which also honored the seven aid workers killed in an Israeli airstrike.

“Israel is better than the way this war is being waged,” Andrés wrote. “It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. It is better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces.”

Andrés rejected the statement from Netanyahu that these type of deaths “happen in war.” He described it as a “direct attack on clearly marked vehicles whose movements were known by the Israel Defense Forces.”

He also blamed the strike as a direct result of the policies that “squeezed humanitarian aid to desperate.” Andrés pleaded to the best of Israelis to “show up” and remember that food is a universal human right.

“It is not a sign of weakness to feed strangers; it is a sign of strength,” Andrés wrote. “The people of Israel need to remember, at this darkest hour, what strength truly looks like.”

The situation in Gaza is “beyond catastrophic,” Dominic Allen, head of the United Nations Population Fund, told the Agence France Press news agency yesterday.

Allen, who recently spent a week in the enclave, said that he was “terrified” of what could happen if the war continued.

“I have been to Gaza many times before this war, and what I saw (this time) was truly heartbreaking. Gaza is dust,” he told the French news agency. “Everybody we drove by and many we spoke to were gaunt, starving, hungry and looking frail. Everybody was looking for food.”

WASHINGTON — A Palestinian American doctor walked out of the room during a meeting with Arab Americans at the White House last night. 

Dr. Thaer Ahmad confirmed to NBC News that he told President Joe Biden “it was disappointing I’m the only Palestinian here, and out of respect for my community, I’m going to leave,” and handed him a letter from an 8-year-old orphaned girl in Rafah.

Ahmad is an emergency room doctor who spent at least three weeks in Gaza. The meeting to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan comes amid anger in the community over the Biden administration’s approach to the war and the U.S. support for Israel.

Prosecutors in the home city of the Polish aid worker killed in Gaza have launched an investigation into his killing, the state news agency PAP reported today.

“We have started an investigation into the killing of Polish citizen Damian Sobol on April 1-2 in the Gaza Strip as a result of an attack by the Israeli armed forces using explosives,” Beata Starzecka, the deputy district prosecutor in Przemysl, told PAP.

A explosion that injured three United Nations military observers and a Lebanese interpreter on a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon was caused when their vehicle drove over a charge that had been previously placed by Hezbollah militant group, the Israeli military said on X today.

The military observers were part of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, which supports the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL.

Saturday’s blast came as clashes between the Israeli military and Hezbollah militants escalated in recent weeks.

The Israel Defense Forces has previously denied it was behind the attack.

Wearing traditional Palestinian kaffiyeh scarves and carrying toy assault rifles, Israeli protesters dressed up as Hamas militants demonstrate outside the entrance of the UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem today.

Pope Francis has made his latest request for a cease-fire in Gaza, while expressing his “deep regret” over the seven aid workers killed in an Israeli strike.

“I reiterate my firm request for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip,” he said during his weekly general audience at the Vatican, according to the Holy See’s news agency, Vatican News.

Francis said he was praying for the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers killed.

“Let us avoid any irresponsible attempts to escalate the conflict in the region,” he added, before calling for the world to work “tirelessly for an end to this and other wars that continue to bring death and suffering to so many parts of the world.”

Samantha Power, who leads the U.S. Agency for International Development, has called the deaths of seven aid workers in an Israeli airstrike “devastating and deeply alarming.”

They “were there to do one thing — to help get food to desperate, starving people,” she said in a statement late yesterday. “Their deaths, and the deaths of more than 30,000 Palestinians and 200 humanitarian workers in this conflict, are devastating and deeply alarming.”

She said Israel’s investigation into the killings “must be swift, it must bring accountability, and its findings must be made public.” And that Israel “must do far more to protect aid workers and protect civilians from the unacceptable levels of casualties they continue to experience as a result of IDF military operations.” Power gave her “deepest condolences to the families, friends, and colleagues of those killed.”

The U.S., which has been criticized for verbally censuring Israel without leveraging its financial and diplomatic support of the country, “will continue to do all we can to deliver humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” Power added, “but the government of Israel and the IDF must do much more to facilitate this work.”

Police clashed with anti government protesters outside Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem last night on the third day of demonstrations calling for the release of the hostages held in Gaza and for early elections in Israel.

Israel Police said in a statement on X that an authorized march started peacefully but then it turned into a “riot” as hundreds of people tried to break through barriers of Netanyahu’s home. 

One protester waved a burning torch at a police trooper and another was lying under a police car, the statement said. 

Five people were arrested for violating public order, it added.