An Israeli airstrike hit a car carrying its workers in Gaza, killing five people, according to World Central Kitchen

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike on a car in the Gaza Strip killed five people on Saturday, including employees of World Central Kitchen, and the charity said it was “urgently seeking more details” after the Israeli The military said it targeted a WCK employee who had been involved in the Hamas attack that sparked the war.

WCK said in an email that the airstrike left it “heartbroken” and that it had no knowledge that anyone in the car had alleged ties to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, saying it was “operating with incomplete information work.” They said they were suspending operations in Gaza.

The charity’s aid work in Gaza was temporarily halted earlier this year after an Israeli strike killed seven of its staff, most of them foreigners.

REGARD: Israel sparks international outrage after airstrikes kill seven aid workers

The Israeli military said in a statement that the suspected October 7 attacker had worked with the WCK and called on “senior officials of the international community and the WCK administration to clarify” how this happened.

Violence raged in Gaza even as the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appeared to be holding despite sporadic episodes that tested its fragility. Israel on Saturday reportedly attacked Hezbollah arms smuggling sites along Syria’s border with Lebanon.

The attack on the vehicle was the latest part of what aid groups say is dangerous work delivering aid in Gaza, where the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis that has displaced much of the territory’s 2.3 million residents and caused widespread hunger triggered.

World Central Kitchen provides meals to people in need after natural disasters or conflict. His teams often served as a lifeline for people in Gaza struggling to feed themselves.

Palestinian health official Muneer Alboursh confirmed the strike, and an aid worker in Gaza confirmed that the three killed were WCK employees. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

At Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, a woman held up a staff card with the WCK logo, the word “contractor” and the name of a man said to have been killed in the strike. Items – burned phones, a clock and stickers with the WCK logo – lay spread out on the hospital floor.

Nazmi Ahmed said his nephew worked for WCK last year. He said he drove to the charity’s kitchens and warehouses.

“Today he went to work as usual… and was targeted without warning and without reason,” Ahmed said.

In April, a strike on a WCK aid convoy killed seven workers – three British citizens, Polish and Australian nationals, a Canadian-American dual citizen and a Palestinian. The Israeli military called the attack a mistake.

This strike sparked an international outcry and led to several aid organizations, including WCK, briefly suspending aid to Gaza. Another Palestinian WCK employee was killed by shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike in August, the group said.

Another Israeli airstrike hit a car near a food distribution site in Khan Younis on Saturday, killing 13 people, including children, who were gathering to receive aid. The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis received the bodies.

The ceasefire appears to be in effect

Efforts to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly failed. But the US-France-brokered deal for Lebanon appears to be in effect after it came into force on Wednesday.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had attacked sites used to smuggle weapons from Syria to Lebanon after the ceasefire took effect, which the military described as a violation. There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities, Hezbollah or activists monitoring the conflict there. Israeli aircraft have attacked Hezbollah targets in Lebanon several times since the ceasefire began, citing ceasefire violations.

The Israeli attack in Syria came as insurgents overran the country’s largest city, Aleppo, in a shock offensive, causing fresh uncertainty in a region rocked by multiple wars.

READ MORE: Insurgents are entering Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, fighters and a war observer say

The ceasefire between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah calls for an initial two-month truce, with the militants withdrawing north of Lebanon’s Litani River and Israeli forces returning to their side of the border.

Many Lebanese, some of the 1.2 million displaced, streamed south to their homes despite warnings from the Israeli and Lebanese military to stay away from certain areas.

“Day by day we will return to our normal lives,” said Mustafa Badawi, a cafe owner in Tire.

New attacks in Lebanon

Lebanon’s state news agency National News Agency reported that two people were killed and two others injured in an Israeli drone strike on the village of Rub Thalatheen. It said another drone strike hit a car in the southern village of Majdal Zoun, and Lebanon’s health ministry said three people were injured, including a seven-year-old.

The Israeli military said earlier Saturday that its forces, which will remain in southern Lebanon until they gradually withdraw during the 60-day ceasefire, had tried to distance “suspects” in the area, without elaborating.

Israel says it reserves the right to take action against any perceived violations. Israel has made the return of tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to their homeland the goal of the war with Hezbollah. But the Israelis were afraid to return home.

Hezbollah began attacking Israel on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and its attack on southern Israel the day before. Israel and Hezbollah exchanged cross-border shelling for nearly a year until Israel escalated its fight with an attack in which hundreds of Hezbollah fighters’ pagers and walkie-talkies exploded. It then launched an intensive airstrikes campaign that killed many Hezbollah leaders, including Hassan Nasrallah, and launched a ground offensive in early October.

According to Lebanese health authorities, more than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire during the conflict in Lebanon, many of them civilians. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel – more than half of them civilians – as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.

The war in Gaza was triggered by the Hamas attack in October 2023, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostage. More than 44,000 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive, according to local health authorities, which do not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their count but say more than half of the dead were women and children.

Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, and Mroue reported from Beirut. Mohammad Jahjouh in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, contributed.