Avi Benlolo: Siding with Hamas won't honour aid workers killed in mistaken Israeli attack

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The tragic loss of seven World Central Kitchen staff members providing aid in Gaza exposed not only the dire consequences of war but also the not-so-shocking media and political bias against Israel. We are heartbroken over the “seven heroes” accidentally killed in an IDF strike on their aid convoy.

Sadly, in war zones, aid workers who give a helping hand purely out of the goodness of their hearts are among the innocent victims. Speaking from personal experience, when humanitarians venture into war zones, they are uniquely aware of the life-and-death situation they place themselves in, as is their employer.

It’s time for the world to realize that Israel is in a brutal war with the most vicious terrorist organization on the planet. It is engaged in unprecedented urban guerrilla warfare, whereby Hamas terrorists dress like civilians, hide in hospitals, and transport themselves in ambulances. As such, Israel has already made many intelligence errors, even accidentally killing its own citizens fleeing their Hamas captors.

Civilians are used as human shields, kindergartens are used to fire rockets, and every inch of Gaza is booby-trapped by IEDs (something Canadians are familiar with from Afghanistan). All this doesn’t even bring into the equation the hundreds of miles of tunnels crisscrossing the area, virtually making Hamas terrorists ghosts in the face of Israel’s war machine.

All this doesn’t justify the lapse in judgment and intelligence that led to the targeting of WCK’s aid workers. We have seen similar occurrences in other war zones, such as on Aug. 29, 2021, when a U.S. drone fired a missile at a truck in Kabul, killing an aid worker and 10 other civilians, including seven children.

After initially denying the tragic incident, weeks later, the U.S. military acknowledged the attack was a mistake after footage surfaced showing three children coming to greet the target at his car before they were all killed. Still, the world was quiet. The media was relatively silent on this occasion and many others.

No world leaders pounced on the opportunity to vigorously denounce the U.S., especially not Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — as he had quickly done when he wrongly thought Israel had bombed al-Alhi Hospital last fall. “We obviously need full accountability and investigation in this,” Trudeau said about the aid worker killings, even while Israel had already taken responsibility and announced an investigation.

The media too was all over this rare opportunity to portray Israel in a negative light. Some television stations played and replayed Israel’s video clip announcing its deep sorrow — guilty as charged! The unspoken backstory the media tried to convey was a reinforcement of the false “genocide” libellous claim repeated by pro-Hamas protesters in our streets.

But where was the media when it was revealed that the staff of an aid organization (UNRWA) were involved in the murders and rapes of Oct. 7? Where was the media when Canada announced it was restarting funding to UNRWA despite allegations of complicity in terror?

What’s more, where is the media about the human rights of the 134 Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza? Would it show too much sympathy for the Israeli side to discuss the ongoing sexual assaults and rapes happening now to female hostages — as disclosed by former female hostages?

Responsibility for the carnage in Gaza is Hamas’s alone. When it launched its war on Israel, it anticipated an overwhelming response. It cares not for its civilian population, much less for aid workers. That is, unless they can be of service to its ambition to murder Jews, such as UNRWA had been.

Instead of siding with a terrorist organization (Hamas) and calling on Israel to make concessions, world leaders would do the Palestinian people a favour by calling on it to lay down its weapons and surrender. It’s time for Hamas to stop they should say.

World Central Kitchen must be commended for its efforts to feed the hungry and to take immeasurable risks to help the people in Gaza. What the world needs is more people, like those tragically killed, who display altruism, care, and concern for others. Siding with terrorists like Hamas, however, will never bring us closer to this vision for a better world.

Avi Abraham Benlolo is the Founder and CEO of The Abraham Global Peace Initiative.