Polish premier rebukes Israel over attack killing aid workers in Gaza

By Jo Harper

WARSAW (AA) - Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reacted sharply on Wednesday to comments from Israeli representatives after an airstrike killed seven foreign humanitarian workers in Gaza, including a Polish national.

Tusk said on X that the "vast majority of Poles have shown full solidarity with Israel" since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas, warning his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and the country's Ambassador in Warsaw, Yaakov Liwne:

"Today you are putting this solidarity to a really hard test. The tragic attack on volunteers and your reaction arouse understandable anger."

Tusk's remarks came in the wake of Israeli forces killing seven aid workers after striking a convoy of the World Central Kitchen, a US-based food charity, on Monday. Those killed include Polish citizen Damian Sobol, 35, as well as British nationals, an Australian, an American-Canadian dual citizen and a Palestinian.

Calling the attack a "tragic accident" and "inadvertent" strike on "innocent people" by the Israeli army, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said this kind of incident "happens in war."

In a video published on social media, Tusk mentioned that representatives of humanitarian groups said the volunteers were killed while traveling in clearly marked cars at the time of the Israeli attack.

"You can't dismiss it by saying that this happens in war, as Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday. There is clearly something wrong with the Israeli army's rules for using weapons," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Polish Radio Three on Wednesday.

"If it was true that the convoy was deliberately attacked because there was a terrorist there and therefore civilian lives were sacrificed, then I do not know of a system in which this would be justified. If this were the case, Israel must apologize and pay compensation to the victims' families ... I would advise the Israeli ambassador to be more humble."

In a post on X about the attack, Israel's Ambassador Liwne had made a reference to "Polish antisemites" and lawmaker Grzegorz Braun who extinguished Hanukkah candles in the country's lower house of parliament in December.

Parliament speaker Szymon Holownia said Poland should demand not only compensation for Sobol's family, but also prosecution of those responsible for the "war crime."

"Because if someone shoots civilians during war, it is a war crime," he added.