US NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) has announced that it is resuming its relief work in the famine-stricken Gaza Strip after suspending it due to an Israeli strike that killed seven of its staff a month ago, AFP reports.
"We decided that we had to continue our mission to go there and give food to the residents in these particularly difficult times," the NGO announced.
"We have 276 trucks with the equivalent of 8 million meals ready to come in through the Rafah border crossing," said WCK, which claims to have already distributed "over 43 million meals".
On 1 April, seven aid workers from the organization, founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, were killed in a series of three Israeli strikes on their convoy in Gaza. The Israeli army has admitted that it made a number of mistakes at various levels.
The officers - three Britons, an American from Canada, a Pole, an Australian and a Palestinian - were killed after supervising the partial unloading of a ship carrying 300 tons of food aid from Cyprus.
They were honored in Washington, where the NGO is based.
The tragedy has outraged the international community and renewed calls for Israel to allow more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip, which is in a major humanitarian crisis.
"While we have no concrete guarantees, we continue to seek answers" about this attack and "our demand for an international and impartial investigation remains," the statement said.
The NGO said it accounted for 62% of the aid provided by NGOs on the ground.
It also announced that it intended to send aid trucks from Jordan and that it was building a third kitchen in Gaza. /BGNES
