60 World Central Kitchen Workers in Gaza Sacked after Failing Security Checks

Photo Credit: Atia Mohammed/Flash90

World Central Kitchen (WCK) employee examines the group’s car that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dair El-Balah, Gaza Strip, April 2, 2024.

About 60 Gaza-based workers for World Central Kitchen (WCK), a Washington-based food relief charity that has faced challenges with the IDF for months in the Gaza Strip, lost their jobs after failing an Israeli security background check, Bloomberg reported Monday.

The terminations took place one week after an Israeli airstrike on a car in Gaza killed five people, including three WCK workers. Israel stated that the strike targeted a Hamas terrorist involved in the October 7, 2023 atrocities, who was later identified as a WCK staff member.

On November 30, WCK, a not-for-profit NGO that provides food relief, issued the following statement:

We are heartbroken to share that a vehicle carrying World Central Kitchen colleagues was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.

At this time, we are working with incomplete information and are urgently seeking more details.

World Central Kitchen had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties to the October 7th Hamas attack.

World Central Kitchen is pausing operations in Gaza at this time. Our hearts are with our colleagues and their families in this unimaginable moment.

Bloomberg cited an internal WCK memo in Arabic that said, “In this process, some members of the team were flagged as security threats, so we were forced to let them go for the safety of everybody in Gaza.”

They had to let go of 60 bad apples out of 500 employees in Gaza. That’s 12% bad apples.