When there's a natural disaster or a war pretty much anywhere in the world. Odds are you're going to find World Central Kitchen. This is the charity run by Jose Andres. Their whole thing is going into the most dangerous places on earth to deliver food to hungry people. And ever since October 7th, World Central Kitchen has been in Gaza tirelessly serving meals to starving Palestinians despite Israel's continued throttling of aid deliveries. Well, late Monday we learned that one of those deliveries took a tragic turn.

World Central Kitchen says an Israeli airstrike has killed seven of its aid workers in Gaza. The organization said the team had just delivered food when its convoy was hit, traveling in a deep, conflicted zone marked with the group's logo, and they coordinated their movements with the IDF.

The group says a dual U.S. Canada national as well as people from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom and a Palestinian were killed. Remember, there has been huge pressure on Israel from the international community and explicit instructions from the International Court of Justice to allow more aid in so Gazans don't starve to death. That is perhaps why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was so quick to come out and say, yes, this was us.

Unfortunately, in the last day, there was a tragic incident where our forces unintentionally struck innocent people in the Gaza Strip. It happens in war and we are thoroughly investigating it. We are in contact with the government, and we'll do everything to prevent such occurrences in the future.

It's a stark reminder of just how dangerous Gaza is right now. Nowhere is safe and no one is safe. But it's been a minute since we talked about fears of a wider regional war in the Middle East stemming from what's going on in Gaza. All those fears are once again front of mind after what happened in Damascus, Syria on Monday.

If this was Israel, then it would constitute an attack, really, on Iranian sovereign territory.

Today what the death of top Iranian commanders could mean for U.S. forces in the Middle East. From CNN, This is Tug of War. I'm David Rind.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is with us today. She's at the Pentagon right now. And Natasha, we're talking on Tuesday and yesterday, we heard about this big airstrike in Syria. And within a few hours, my slack was lighting up with colleagues saying, like, hey, this is a big deal here in terms of this war. So what exactly happened?

So on Monday, Iran blamed Israel for attacking Iran's consulate in Damascus and killing seven Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members, including two very senior commanders. And Iran said that it is going to take very decisive retaliation for this strike. And it is really significant because if this was Israel, then it would constitute an attack, really on Iranian sovereign territory, because that's what a consulate or an embassy is. And the Israelis now are not saying one way or another, whether it was them.

Joining us now to discuss this and other issues. A spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. First, let me ask you about this strike in Damascus. Was Israel involved?

I'm not going to comment to that strike, but I want to tell you that in the last six months, Iran is making this region escalate.

They're declining to confirm or deny, but they are saying that according to their intelligence, this was not a consulate at all, but actually it was being used as a kind of headquarters for, Iran's IRGC, which is the military wing of Iran.

This is no consulate and this is no embassy. I repeat, this is no consulate, and this is no embassy. This is a military building, of course, forces disguised as a civilian building in Damascus.

'And so now we're kind of waiting to see whether Iran chooses to escalate. They did vow some kind of retaliation, but it's unclear what exactly that's going to look like. It's worth noting that there are many troops still stationed in Iraq and Syria as part of the anti-ISIS campaign, and they could be a pretty ripe target for Iraqi U.S. troops. Yes, there are a number of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, and they could be a pretty ripe target for Iran if Iran chooses to retaliate.

And so if this was Israel, it would be a pretty brazen act, like you said, hitting an embassy like this. But for the U.S., we've seen those attacks from Iranian proxies on U.S. troops. You know, last year, I can't imagine they're too happy with possibly being dragged into this because Iran kind of holds the U.S. responsible as well, right?

'Yeah. And in fact, the U.S. took the very dramatic step of back channeling with Iran directly in the wake of this strike, to tell them that they had nothing to do with this and that they did not know about it beforehand. And so they're clearly trying to communicate to the Iranians that they don't want this conflict to escalate, because there has been a period of calm in Iraq and Syria when it comes to Iran backed militants attacking U.S. forces. Over the last two months, there have been no such attacks when previously they were happening almost daily. And so the U.S. obviously doesn't want to see those attacks start up again. And they don't want Iran to have any excuse to direct its militia groups in the countries to start them up again. And so this is obviously something the U.S. is going to be working very hard behind the scenes to try to de-escalate.

More with Natasha in just a bit.

Welcome back to Tug of War and my conversation with CNN's Natasha Bertrand.

So that meeting between top U.S. and Israeli officials about Rafah that we've been talking about on the show finally took place this week, didn't seem like there was a big breakthrough, and the U.S. still hasn't even seen plans for how Israel would protect civilians during an operation. And going ahead without a plan like that would likely cross the red line for President Biden. So with all that said, Natasha, you and the team have been doing some reporting about how the U.S. is still selling weapons and equipment to Israel, despite all the concerns about how they are conducting this war in Gaza. So what's going on here?

'So my colleagues and I are told that the administration is preparing to greenlight a massive $18 billion sale of American F-15 fighter jets to Israel, which would not necessarily be delivered for another couple of years. But that comes obviously at a very sensitive moment when U.S. weapons sales to Israel are under a microscope and are being scrutinized very closely, particularly by Democratic lawmakers who have been urging the U.S. to not just write blank checks to Israel for weaponry and equipment, and not just approve the kinds of sales of equipment that Israel has been seeking during this war. And so the question now, of course, is will this go through Congress without any kind of hitch? It's currently in an informal review process on the Hill to Republicans who would have to sign off on it, have indeed done so. The two Democrats who would have to approve of it have not yet done so, we're told. And so there could be some controversy on Capitol Hill with regard to this sale, because it's not one that you see every day. This is a very, very large sale, the largest not only since October 7th, but also in the last several years. And critics say that it's doesn't make a lot of sense because the administration, instead of approving the sale, could be using it, for example, as leverage, or it could be conditioning.

I was going to say the optics are pretty wild here. You have the Biden administration basically telling Israel, you guys have to conduct yourselves differently in Gaza. This Rafah thing can't go ahead without a real plan. But yet, let's still approve this unusually large sale of fighter jets like those seem to be at odds.

'Yeah, and the administration would say that there is no contradiction here, that they have always and continued to say that they support Israel's right to defend itself, and that these F-15s are basically an investment in Israel's long term security, given that it is surrounded by enemies, including Iran.

I understand the fulfilling can take years, but are you basically saying that the authorization of the transfer coming in these recent weeks was a coincidence?

So I'm not saying it's a coincidence that Israel has been engaged in a military conflict. And of course, when you were engaged in a military conflict, you deplete your military stocks and you need and you need to see those. I'm not going to go further. So I'm not going to get into I'm not going to get that. As is always the case, I'm not getting into the timings of of exact requests from here.

But the response from critics is, well, this is not an immediate need for the Israelis. All you're doing really is showing them that you are willing to provide these very large scale type of military sales to them without actually requiring them to do anything in return other than pay the U.S., of course, $18 billion. But at a moment when you're trying to influence them and leverage them to rein in their operations in Gaza, to do more to protect civilians, to get more humanitarian aid in, it just seems as though the U.S. could be using a little bit more of its weight here in terms of what it has to offer Israel to actually affect some of that change that it says that it wants to see.

Don't you think that is going to damage the weight of your word, that your credibility and basically your sincerity and saying that parts of it?

'So I do not agree with that at all. We have been very clear that we want to see Israel do everything it can to minimize civilian casualties. We have made clear that they need to do everything that they need to operate at all times, in full compliance with international humanitarian law. At the same time, we are committed to Israel's right to self-defense, and this is a long term commitment the United States has made that it made before October 7th. And that continues, it continues since October 7th.

So and then there are also concerns about the extent to which the U.S. has continued to share intelligence with the Israelis, that intelligence sharing was really ramped up in the wake of October 7th, because the U.S. wanted to make sure that Israel didn't have any blind spots that could allow the same kind of terror attack that that Hamas conducted to happen again. And so this intelligence sharing, we're told, has really been focused on, for example, hostage recovery as well as monitoring the borders between, Gaza and Egypt and Israel as. Well as a northern border with Lebanon. But there are concerns that a lot of this intelligence could be used in a way that the U.S. doesn't necessarily intend. So, for example, if the U.S. were to say there are Hamas fighters here or there, then Israel could then use that information to target those fighters. And as we know, Hamas operatives do tend to embed themselves with the civilian population. And so the concern has been that the U.S. could be inadvertently providing intelligence to the Israelis that then allows them to hit these targets where there are, civilians, given that it is such a densely populated urban environment. And so there are now questions about whether the U.S. should curtail that intelligence sharing or whether there needs to be some kind of examination here or review done about just exactly how this intelligence is being used. Because once it's shared with the Israelis, the U.S. really has no control over what the Israelis do with it.

So when you hear from critics that, like, there are concerns about whether American weapons are being used in a way that, you know, harms civilians, that this intelligence sharing could also inadvertently be harming civilians in a way?

That's exactly right. And I should note that we also have been providing the Israelis with a lot of processing power, essentially computer power, that allows them to sift through a lot of the information that they have been seeing and obtaining from Gaza, from Hamas. And so it's a very robust, very intricate, elaborate relationship that the U.S. has with the Israelis. And I think a lot of critics are saying that it needs to be reviewed and looked really at every level, given what we're seeing happening in Gaza.

Yeah, it's just a reminder when we hear the term ally, it's not just words of encouragement. There are actual tangible things that the U.S. is doing to support Israel. And like you say, a lot of critics say that needs to change in some way going forward. Natasha. Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Tug of War is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producer is Haley Thomas, Dan Dzula is our technical director. And Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Lenni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Caroline Patterson and Katie Hinman. We'll be back on Friday with another episode then.