American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) workers inside Gaza fear they will be targeted following the deadly Israeli strike on World Central Kitchen workers on Monday, according to Palestine Country Director Sandra Rasheed.
“Our team on the ground is for first time since this all started is really quite worried and scared about them being targeted,” Rasheed told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday.
Based on images, she said she believes the convoy was a targeted attack by Israel.
“If you look at the images and you look at what happened on the ground, the vehicles were hit three different times. Very direct, targeted hits. It’s clear that this was a targeted attack. If it wasn’t going to be targeted, I don’t think it would’ve been hit three times,” she said.
ANERA joined WCK in suspending its operations in Gaza after the aid workers were killed Monday. Rasheed said the groups worked together daily, providing over a million meals a week inside Gaza, without which there would be a “deep impact” on Palestinian civilians.
“The humanitarian conditions on the ground are going to be even more difficult,” she warned.
Israel's response: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israeli forces “unintentionally struck innocent people in the Gaza Strip,” and that the incident is being "thoroughly" investigated.
The Israel Defense Force's chief of staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said in a video statement Tuesday that the strike was “a mistake that followed a misidentification” and that the strike was not carried out to harm the aid workers.