'I Will Forever Have to Live With This': Emotional World Central Kitchen Founder José Andrés Mourns Aid Workers Killed by Israeli Airstrike
April 7 2024, Published 2:30 p.m. ET
Chef, restaurateur, and World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés broke down in tears during an emotional interview about the seven WCK aid workers who were killed by an Israeli airstrike on Monday while delivering food to Palestinians in Gaza, RadarOnline.com has learned.
"It has not sunk in yet. I'm still going through the process. But there’s a lot of work to be done," Andrés told ABC's Martha Raddatz, who was filling in on This Week With George Stephanopoulos.
"We are a small organization, and right now we are in the middle of this story that we wish we were not part of," he added. "We are an organization that — we want to go to difficult places and bring food to people and bring joy to people. Because when it’s about food and water, you need it today. So, for me, I think the grief is going on, especially the members I knew closely."
Andrés became visibly choked up with grief as he remembered the volunteers who lost their lives.
“Zomi, I spent a lot of time with her in missions. She was always a joy and was a very beloved member of the community. She was like a sister,” he said.
"Damian, who was our newest member. And so, this hits home because, that’s people I served next to, and they’re an example of who we are. And that they put themselves in harm’s way to try to bring hope and smiles to others."
I will forever have to live with this, as well as the families and all the members of World Central Kitchen," Andrés said.
Raddatz brought up a "very emotional tweet" that Andrés posted about Zomi this week. "'I wish I never founded the organization. You would be alive somewhere today, smiling and making somebody somewhere feel like they were the most beloved person in the world.' You said you wish you'd never founded World Central Kitchen?" she asked.
"You know, I will forever have to live with this, as well as the families and all the members of World Central Kitchen," Andrés replied. "I founded it with one very simple idea: can we provide food and water quicker than anybody else? Obviously, something like this makes you think."
"We did what we did because there's a lot of people that are always forgotten. People that are always voiceless," he continued. "I know very often there’s many people that join the organization because they saw me doing the work before. And this began being an organization of one that became an organization of millions."
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In another interview with Reuters earlier this week, Andrés alleged that the WCK aid convoy was "targeted deliberately."
"What I know is that we were targeted deliberately, nonstop, until everybody was dead in this convoy," he said. “This was not just a bad-luck situation where, Oops, we dropped the bomb in the wrong place. This was over a 1.5, 1.8 kilometers, with a very defined humanitarian convoy that had signs in the top, on the roof, a very colorful logo."
An official statement from the World Central Kitchen released after the attack read, "The WCK team was traveling in a deconflicted zone in two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle. Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza on the maritime route."
“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable,” WCK CEO Erin Gore added.
Andrés alleged that the WCK aid convoy was "targeted deliberately."
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Israeli government spokeswoman Tal Heinrich has denied that the aid workers were targeted deliberately.
"Well, we're not targeting humanitarians," she told NewsNation host Dan Abrams earlier this week. "We're not targeting civilians. All we care about in this war is going after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. We want to eliminate this terrorist organization."
"What happened is very, very tragic indeed. We will draw the right lessons from it and implement it," Heinrich explained, noting an investigation is in progress "as the defense minister and the prime minister have ordered, the findings of which will be made public."
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