The United States is "waiting to pass judgment" until an Israeli investigation into the killing of seven aid workers is completed, a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday.
"We continue to be committed to Israel’s defense, but we continue to press them consistently to ensure that they fully comply with international humanitarian law," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Wednesday.
"And critically, that when they do make mistakes — as they very will, as they very obviously did yesterday — that they are transparent about those mistakes, that they investigate them, and if appropriate, there’s accountability," Miller added.
Seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen — a humanitarian aid organization that frequently parachutes into areas facing crisis-levels of food insecurity, including war zones like Gaza, areas recovering from national disasters and parts of the U.S. during the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020 — were killed Monday night in an apparent Israeli air strike, as they returned from an aid mission.
The killing of the seven workers — Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha of Palestine; Lalzawmi Frankcom of Australia; Damian Soból of Poland; Jacob Flockinger of the United States and Canada; and John Chapman, James Henderson and James Kirby of the United Kingdom — kicked off a wave of anger, including from the White House.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he was "outraged and heartbroken" by the killings of the workers, calling their deaths "a tragedy."
"Even more tragically, this is not a standalone incident. This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed. This is a major reason why distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza has been so difficult — because Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians," Biden added. "Incidents like yesterday’s simply should not happen. Israel has also not done enough to protect civilians."
Biden added that he spoke with Chef Jose Andrés, the founder of World Central Kitchen and a co-chair of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, expressing his condolences.
In an op-ed for The New York Times on Wednesday, Andrés called on Israel to “stop killing civilians and aid workers” and allow more food and medical aid into Gaza immediately.
“The seven people killed on a World Central Kitchen mission in Gaza on Monday were the best of humanity,” Andrés wrote. “They are not faceless or nameless. They are not generic aid workers or collateral damage in war.”
“Their work was based on the simple belief that food is a universal human right,” he added. “It is not conditional on being good or bad, rich or poor, left or right. We do not ask what religion you belong to. We just ask how many meals you need.”
"Israel is better than the way this war is being waged," Andrés said. "It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. It is better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces."
He called on Israel's government to "open more land routes for food and medicine today. It needs to stop killing civilians and aid workers today. It needs to start the long journey to peace today."
Israeli military leadership said the air strikes were the result of a "misidentification," and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the nation "deeply regrets the tragic incident."
About 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank in 2023 and 2024, with every one of those deaths coming since Oct. 7, the day of the Hamas attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 Israelis, according to data from the Aid Worker Security Database. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The organization last year suffered a death when a Ukrainian WCK volunteer was killed by a Russian missile striking his apartment building.
On Wednesday, White House national security council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the United States will not conduct a separate investigation into the killings, and that the U.S. has been holding "an ongoing conversation" with Israel, encouraging the country to be "more precise, more targeted, more cautious."
Though many outlets have reported that the U.S. is considering furthering an $18 billion military aid package to Israel, Miller said that many of the arms transfers — and "potential arms transfers" — are systems "that would not be delivered for years — long after, hopefully — the conflict in Gaza has been resolved."
After the aid workers were killed, WCK announced it was halting aid to Gaza. Soon after, American Near East Refugee Aid announced its own pause in aiding Gazans.
Reporters noted that there has been speculation that Israel is seeking to force agencies to halt aid to Gaza. Miller refused to speculate, saying that he can only "speak to what the government of Israel has said and what they have done," noting that Israel has said it wants to see aid come in, and that it has allowed aid to come in.
However, Miller added that aid has been "plagued" by bureaucratic delays and obstacles, before noting that not nearly enough aid has actually gotten into Gaza. "The ultimate fact is…not enough food, not enough water, is getting in right now. And the government of Israel needs to do more to allow it to get in and to facilitate getting it."
He did note, when asked, that the State Department has not yet concluded that Israel has violated international humanitarian law, adding that "these are very much ongoing processes."