Israel Missile Strike Kills 5 U.S. Aid Workers

The Israeli military fired a missile, killing five people in the lead vehicle of an aid convoy in Gaza that it claimed had been hijacked by militants.The military also said it killed a top Hamas commander and two other fighters Friday as its large-scale operations in the West Bank continued into a third day.

The D.C.-based nonprofit that organized the convoy, American Near East Refugee Aid, known as Anera, described it as a “shocking incident” in a statement Friday and said that those killed were from a local transportation company. It was urgently seeking more details about the incident.

The convoy had been delivering medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati-run hospital in Rafah, Palestine Country Director Sandra Rasheed said in the statement to The Washington Post, and its route was coordinated with the Israel Defense Forces.

Thursday’s incident is one of several such attacks this week. In remarks to the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, the U.S. representative, Robert Wood, referred to an incident that occurred Sunday, according to U.N. officials, in which he said the IDF fired toward a UNICEF vehicle.

On Tuesday, at least 10 rounds were fired into a World Food Program vehicle, which the United Nations blamed on Israel and prompted WFP to temporarily suspend staff movement across Gaza. Wood said the Biden administration was “deeply alarmed” by Tuesday’s shooting and urged Israel to “immediately rectify the issues within their system that allowed this to happen.”