Celebrity chef and humanitarian José Andrés, in an early morning op-ed, argued Israel is “better” than the actions it has taken amid its ongoing war in Gaza against militant group Hamas.
“Israel is better than the way this war is being waged,” Andrés said in the piece, published early Wednesday by The New York Times. “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.”
Andrés’s piece in the Times follows an Israeli attack that killed six aid workers with his group, World Central Kitchen (WCK), and their Palestinian driver Monday. According to WCK, they were driving in armored cars in a “deconflicted zone” as the attack occurred.
“The Israeli government needs to open more land routes for food and medicine today. It needs to stop killing civilians and aid workers today,” Andrés continued. “It needs to start the long journey to peace today.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took responsibility for the attack in a statement Tuesday, saying a “tragic event” occurred “in which our forces unintentionally harmed non-combatants in the Gaza Strip.”
“This happens in war,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “We are conducting a thorough inquiry and are in contact with the governments. We will do everything to prevent a recurrence.”
Andrés called those who were killed “angels” in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding “that the only crime they committed was feeding people.” The post was in response to World Central Kitchen’s response to the incident.
President Biden called Andrés on Tuesday to offer his condolences for the deaths of the aid workers and said in a statement that the victims were “brave and selfless. Their deaths are a tragedy.”
“Even more tragically, this is not a stand-alone incident. This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed,” Biden wrote.
“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,” the president added.