They had told the Israelis they were there. Travelling along a coastal road in Gaza, six aid workers – from the UK, Poland, Australia and Canada – and their Palestinian driver. They had just unloaded more than 100 tonnes of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza for the millions of people at risk of famine when suddenly a drone appeared above them and struck not once but three times. There were no survivors.
As Peter Beaumont tells Michael Safi, the strikes on the team from the aid organisation World Central Kitchen have done what 33,000 Palestinians deaths apparently could not and outraged leaders in the UK and around the world. Israel says these strikes were an error, a tragedy, to be independently investigated.
As the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, explains, the mood at the highest level in the UK has noticeably shifted. Now there is an open debate among senior figures in the legal profession and at the top of politics about whether Britain should continue to arm Israel. Polling of the public suggests more than half of people believe it should stop.
Photograph: Ahmed Zakot/Reuters
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