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On Monday, seven aid workers from Chef Jose Andres's World Central
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Kitchen were killed in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike.
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The nonprofit delivered much needed food and water to the Gaza Strip
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but has now paused operations.
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The seven workers delivered more than 100 tons of aid and were
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traveling in marked vehicles.
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The nonprofit says it informed the Israeli government.
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They were coming. ID F hit the cars with a drone
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strike killing the seven aid workers.
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The victims were from Australia,
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Palestine Poland the UK and included a US Canadian citizen.
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In response, Chef Jose Andres wrote the Israeli government needs to
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stop this indiscriminate killing needs to stop restricting human Unitarian aid,
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stopped killing civilians and aid workers.
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President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the situation is
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unacceptable. He has called on an investigation.
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Reports show that the US approved thousands of more bombs to Israel
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on the day. The aid workers were killed.
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Id F called the attack on the aid vehicles a serious mistake
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and a failure resulting from wrong identification.
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And in response world central kitchen said Id F cannot credibly investigate
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its own failure and demanded an independent investigation They also said that
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the root cause of the tragedy is the severe lack of food
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in Gaza and called on Israel to dramatically increase the volume of
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food and medicine. To them.
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Here to explain the situation is Chef Grace Ramirez,
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an ambassador for World Central Kitchen.
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Welcome, Chef Grace.
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Thank you so much for being here today with us.
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Thank you for having me.
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I appreciate it. So for anyone who doesn't know what is
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World Central Kitchen and how did it come to be?
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we are a chef relief team.
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It was founded by chef Jose Andres.
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And what we do is respond to,
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to different sorts of emergencies being natural disasters or in this case
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was war before it was,
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you know, wholesale only responded to natural disasters.
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it's evolved and now it's one of the most recognized organizations
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NGO S to feed people in need in different sorts of
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settings. How was World Central Kitchen helping in Gaza?
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Like I know you were recently there.
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Zomi Frank come being a dear friend,
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a colleague who we've served in many places.
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they were there full time distributing meals to those in need
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There was about 43 million meals who were,
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had been distributed up to up to date.
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I could not enter Gaza in the operation.
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Nome Kawas I was in Israel and the border of
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Gaza trying to get in but no meto,
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we saw chef Jose Andres speak out against Israel.
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Do you share his outrage?
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I need people to understand that there's tremendous suffering in both sides
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you know, after October 7th.
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there was a lot of people affected by that tragic,
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you know, I don't think I need to state the obvious
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of what is currently happening as a humanitarian myself.
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I saw the despair and suffering on both sides and,
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you know, people obviously,
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you know, and now it's become a disproportionate amount of death
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one versus the other.
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But, but it's still death and there's still there's so
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many millions of people affected by this tragedy.
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it's such a difficult time and I mean,
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this has been going on forever,
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And we know you were close with Zomi.
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How can we best honor the world Central Kitchen?
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Like the volunteers who were killed.
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She would have wanted me for me to honor her in,
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in saying how selfless she was,
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how incredibly hard working she was.
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And that she was the first one to be called to go
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anywhere and anywhere and everywhere in the world.
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and for dedication and passion to what she did,
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you know, this was her calling.
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She passed doing what she loved and as tragic as it is
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I understand because it's like if you are going to
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pass doing what you love.
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I have much respect for that and,
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and we need to remember that she,
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she died in a horrible,
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tragic way, but she died doing what she loved that was
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serving others. That is very true and beautiful words.
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Chef Grace since World Central Kitchen has suspended activities in Gaza
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who will fill that void?
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Are people just going to starve now?
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Well, I think they're trying to,
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the leadership team is trying to figure that out right now.
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What are the next steps to take?
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You know, Jose is very committed to being in Gaza
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I just cannot speak on behalf of what his plans are
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but I'm sure that the team is trying to figure it
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out. Absolutely. And as a regular person,
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civilian, what can I do to channel the frustration,
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the anger and, and I mean,
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even help the people in Gaza,
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we need to donate to the different organizations that are being there
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I doubt that World Center Kitchen would stop forever.
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You know, but right now what we can do is
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is support the different organizations that are there on the ground doctors
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and, and people that,
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that are there helping,
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you know, and as humans,
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I think that, that we just need to remember that,
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that we can demonized and create more and a Fuego,
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you know, I know that we're all Indignados conto,
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right? But hate just fuels more hate and that doesn't serve
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anybody. I think that's very important to remember and that's saying
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it, it's in Spanish,
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but it's always in my mind.
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Thank you so much for being here today.
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We really appreciate you talking about this tough story with us
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Where can we follow you online and,
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and keep up with you and the latest with what's going on
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with World Central Kitchen?
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Yeah, you should follow World Wck.
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It's World Central Kitchen.
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I'm Chef Grace Ramirez at Chef Grace Ramirez.
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It's not my complete self.
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You know, I have a lot of fun on social
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media. I obviously I post a lot of all the work
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that I do for not only roto kitchen but for life justice
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for migrant women. I work with a lot of different organizations
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who do a phenomenal job to make the world a better place
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I love my Instagram community.
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So you're more than welcome to join it.
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I know I will be tuning here.
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Chef Grace. Thank you.
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You girls are lovely and keep killing it.
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I love seeing my Latinas shining bright,
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so shine as bright as you can and take someone up with
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Thank you so so much.
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I really appreciate it.
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Chef Grace reminded us.
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No, Ie Charleen El Fuego.
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I aa that's what these humanitarian aid workers are doing and we're
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doing so we should honor them to celebrate the work that they
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were doing most definitely.
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