
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, claimed that Israel deliberately struck and killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) organization earlier this week.
"Knowing how Israel operates,my assessment is that Israeli forces intentionally killed #WCK workers so that donors would pull out & civilians in Gaza could continue to be starved quietly. Israel knows Western countries & most Arab countries won't move a finger for the Palestinians," Albanese wrote on social media.
The UN special rapporteur did not provide any evidence to support her claim, which was dismissed as a "conspiracy theory" by commenters.
Albanese has a long record of anti-Israel bias and antisemitism. Last month, she and six other UN officials published a letter blaming Israel for the trampling incident that occurred when a humanitarian aid convoy was swarmed in northern Gaza in February and for all of the fatalities during the incident. A few weeks later, she submitted a report accusing Israel of "genocide."
She has supported Hamas in the aftermath of the terrorist organization's massacre of over 1,200 people on October 7, denying that the massacre was antisemitic in nature as well as Israel's right to defend itself. She called a demand that Hamas release the youngest hostage, Kfir Bibas, who was less than a year old at the time, "unacceptable."
Less than two months after the massacre, Albanese published a book co-opting the phrase used to call out the antisemitism behind the trial of Alfred Dreyfus in 1898, 'J'Accuse.' The purpose of the book was to shift the blame for the massacre Hamas committed from the terrorists who committed the atrocities to their Israeli victims.
In 2022, past comments of Albanse were revealed in which she railed against the "Jewish lobby," engaging in classic antisemitic tropes of Jewish power.
Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, have acknowledged that the WCK workers were killed in an IDF strike and pledged to carry out a thorough and transparent investigation into how such a tragic mistake occurred.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said yesterday (Tuesday), "Unfortunately, in the past day there was a tragic event in which our forces unintentionally harmed non-combatants in the Gaza Strip. This happens in war."
"We are conducting a thorough inquiry and are in contact with the governments. We will do everything to prevent a recurrence," he stressed.
Last night, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi was presented with the preliminary debrief into the incident and said in a statement that the strike was a case of misidentification and the strikes were not meant to harm WCK workers.
“WCK is an organization whose people work across the globe, including in Israel, to do good in difficult conditions,” said the Chief of Staff.
“The IDF works closely together with the World Central Kitchen and greatly appreciates the important work that they do.”
Halevi noted that the IDF completed a preliminary debrief and added, “I want to be very clear—the strike was not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers. It was a mistake that followed a misidentification–at night during a war in very complex conditions. It shouldn’t have happened.”
He continued, “We will continue taking immediate actions to ensure that more is done to protect humanitarian aid workers.”
“This incident was a grave mistake,” Halevi stressed. “Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the people of Gaza. We are sorry for the unintentional harm to the members of WCK. We share in the grief of their families, as well as the entire World Central Kitchen organization, from the bottom of our hearts.”