US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Friday urged Israel to “take concrete actions to ensure UN personnel are fully protected” after shots were fired towards a World Food Programme (WFP) vehicle inside Gaza on Wednesday.
“Israel must take concrete actions to ensure UN personnel are fully protected. All attacks and threatening rhetoric against the UN and humanitarian NGOs need to stop,” she wrote in a post on social media site X.
Thomas-Greenfield’s comment came a day after a similar call from State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
“The Israeli Defense Forces shooting of a WFP vehicle in Gaza is a deeply troubling incident. Humanitarian workers are there to help innocent civilians, and Israel must ensure they are protected,” wrote Miller on X.
WFP announced on Wednesday that it has temporarily suspended movement of its employees across the Gaza Strip, claiming at least 10 bullets struck one of its clearly marked vehicles as it approached an IDF checkpoint.
WFP said in a statement that a convoy of two armored vehicles received "multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach" the Wadi Gaza bridge checkpoint on Tuesday evening. Bullets hit one of the vehicles, but no one in it was hurt, said WFP.
The IDF said in a statement that the incident was under review. "The State of Israel is committed to improve coordination and security with humanitarian organizations to ensure the effective delivery of aid within the Gaza Strip," the IDF stressed.
On Thursday, the deputy US envoy to the United Nations, Robert Wood, informed the UN Security Council that Israel had told the United States that an initial review found that the shots were fired at the WFP vehicle after a "communication error" between IDF units.
This past April, seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said after the strike that it was a case of misidentification and the strikes were not meant to harm WCK workers.
The IDF later dismissed two officers and formally reprimanded senior commanders after an inquiry into the incident.
As a result of the fatal air strike, WCK temporarily halted its food distributions in Gaza, but resumed those distributions about a month later.
Australia, whose citizen was among the seven WCK workers killed in the strike, conducted its own probe of the strike, and recently blamed "serious failures to follow procedures" by IDF personnel for the April incident.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)