Sharjah 24 – AFP: World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres on Sunday called for an independent probe into the Israeli strike that killed seven of his staff in Gaza, and warned that the conflict had become a "war against humanity itself."
"This investigation and many others should be done right, should be done in an independent way," Andres said in an emotional interview with ABC's "This Week."
"This doesn't seem like a war against terror. This doesn't seem anymore like a war about defending Israel," he said. "It really, at this point, seems like a war against humanity itself."
Andres is a celebrity chef in the United States, and the White House has called the killing of the aid workers from his charity a "catalyst" for sterner calls by US President Joe Biden for Israel to curtail the killing of civilians and aid workers, and improve the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Andres called the new aid routes a "first step" and said he supports Israel's right to defend itself, but questioned why the United States was supplying weapons to a country that is "killing American citizens who are humanitarians."
The Israeli Defense Forces have insisted that their killing on Monday of the World Central Kitchen workers in Gaza was a "tragic mistake."
Three Britons, a US-Canadian dual national, a Pole, an Australian and a Palestinian were killed when the WCK convoy, whose route was cleared with the IDF, was repeatedly struck.
When asked about the Israeli report's findings, Andres questioned the narrative, and charged that Israel was targeting anything that "seems" to move, and has been doing so "for too long."
"We need more information. We need to see better quality videos," he said. "What were the conversations, the radio conversations, between the different officers and soldiers in charge?"
"The perpetrator cannot be investigating himself," he added.
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