On Monday, after unloading 100 tons of food aid to a warehouse in the central Gaza Strip, a team of workers with chef José Andrés' U.S.-based World Central Kitchen were hit by an Israeli drone strike while traveling in cars clearly marked with the group's logo. Seven of the team members — including a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, a Palestinian, and workers from Britain, Australia, and Poland — were killed.
World Central Kitchen announced that it would halt operations in Gaza following the attack. Several other humanitarian aid groups followed suit.
But while Michael Capponi's Doral-based nonprofit Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) plans to re-assess some of the areas where it distributes aid — for example, pausing distributions in risky regions to the north — he says his group will remain in the territory, where GEM has been delivering aid since last year.
"We have to," Capponi tells New Times. "There's 1.5 million people stranded in tents. If they don't have basic necessities, they will die."
Since Hamas terrorists mounted a wide-sweeping attack in Israel in October, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 others hostage, Israel has responded with an ongoing bombardment of the densely populated Gaza territory. The siege has left more than 2 million Gaza residents — nearly half of whom are children — mired in a humanitarian crisis.
Experts have warned of imminent famine in Gaza. The Associated Press reported that children are already dying of hunger.
Israel has claimed that it places no restrictions on assistance and blamed Hamas for the ongoing humanitarian crisis, but the United Nations has accused Israel of blocking aid.
GEM has been on the ground in Gaza since almost immediately after the October 7 attack. Operating from a base outside Tel Aviv and another in Egypt near the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, GEM distributed water, blankets, clothing, hygiene kits, and food across the entire territory. The group maintains that it works with trusted partners in Gaza and that no aid will be diverted to Hamas.
Although the organization has received permission and assistance from Israeli military to deliver aid in Gaza — and Capponi believes GEM has a good relationship with the military — he and his team still can't help but wonder: What if that was us?
"This could have easily been our team," Capponi captioned an Instagram clip about the deadly attack on World Central Kitchen's aid workers. "When will this be stopped?"
World Central Kitchen said in a statement that the attack took place in a deconfliction zone where its workers should have been able to travel safely. Israel Defence Forces claims the incident was the result of a "grave mistake" involving a misidentification during the strike.
More than 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza over the past six months, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
GEM has two international directors of operation and a team of roughly 30 Palestinians on the ground in Gaza, as well as a team in Cairo, Egypt composed of Egyptians, Palestinians, and several workers from Miami, Capponi says. The former South Beach real estate developer and nightlife industry staple founded the group in 2010 in response to the devastating Haiti earthquake that year.
Capponi says that yesterday, several members of his team were on the roof of a GEM facility inside the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, when a missile blew up the building next door.
"These are risks that we understand," Capponi says. "But when there's a convoy that's marked with flags that say, you know, World Central Kitchen... things like that should not happen."
He understands that while people may have their opinions on a ceasefire, the safety of international humanitarian aid workers simply shouldn't be up for debate.
"Agencies should be able to travel around wherever they need to go and help people bring medicine to hospitals and food and blankets to people," Capponi says. "That's not much to ask. Our safety needs to be assured and respected."
