INTERNATIONAL alarm over Israel’s genocide in Gaza heightened this week after the killing of a widely known Palestinian aid worker in an Israeli air strike.
Mohammed al-Wahidi, 65, was killed on Tuesday when an Israeli missile struck the taxi he was travelling in through Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood, along with three other people, among them two brothers aged eight and ten who happened to be passing by.
Al-Wahidi had been an English teacher before the war but became a senior official with the Egyptian Relief Committee in Gaza, an Egypt-backed organisation central to humanitarian relief efforts throughout the conflict.
For more than two and a half years he helped coordinate emergency food assistance, oversaw the establishment of camps for displaced families, and worked to get aid to communities hit by repeated waves of displacement, preferring to remain in the field rather than direct operations from an office.
In recent weeks he had also helped organise public screenings of World Cup matches in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah and al-Mawasi, an initiative meant to give families, particularly children, a brief escape from the war.
He was killed only hours before one of those screenings, Egypt’s last-16 match against Argentina.
Activist Mohammed Hmeid, who documented al-Wahidi’s work, wrote that ‘he was not simply an aid worker in a humanitarian committee.
‘He was a door to hope that opened every day for displaced people and those who had lost everything,’ adding: ‘In Gaza, even those who dedicate their lives to helping others are not spared. But good deeds cannot be killed. They live on in the hearts of the people.’
His death adds to a toll the UN had already put at 593 humanitarian workers killed since the war began, including eight since the ceasefire took hold ten months ago.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux said Paris has added its voice to international calls demanding Israel release Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the detained director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said on Monday he had instructed his cabinet to prepare for recognition of the state of Palestine, telling VRT: ‘I don’t know if we will be ready by Friday, but it will be on the table soon,’ a reference to that week’s scheduled ministerial council meeting.
In Britain, Andy Burnham apologised for his Labour’s handling of Israel’s war, saying: ‘I know many people feel that at the start of Israel’s military action in Gaza my party didn’t get it right and I am sorry about that.
‘The response has too often not been good enough. We need to do better.’ His remarks stood in contrast to Keir Starmer’s early comment during a radio interview that Israel had the right to cut off water, food and electricity to Palestinians in Gaza.
