By Burak Bir
LONDON (AA) – On its Thursday front page, UK's The Independent online declared "Enough" in the wake of Israel’s killing of seven food aid workers in the Gaza Strip.
The one-word headline was accompanied by a photo showing a Palestinian girl standing over debris in the besieged enclave.
An editorial titled "It’s time to stop," referring to Israeli attacks on Gaza that have killed some 33,000 people, said Monday’s killing of seven aid workers has become "symbolic of the lawless, reckless manner" in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has prosecuted the offensive on Gaza.
"It may seem wrong that, after more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza have perished, it took the deaths of just seven international aid workers to stir Western governments into a sense of outrage, but that is the reality," it said.
On the Israeli government pledging to investigate the killing, it stressed that there is no need to wait for that to understand what happened.
The newspaper said the known facts are not in dispute, adding that the airstrike victims “were not Hamas militants," rather they were working for the World Central Kitchen aid group and the UN World Food Program.
- Aid convoy route approved by Israel
The seven aid workers were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Monday in the Gaza Strip. They were nationals of Australia, Poland, the UK and Palestine, as well as a US-Canada dual citizen.
Three were British citizens – James Kirby, James Henderson, and John Chapman.
The Independent also mentioned that the vehicles were marked as belonging to the aid group and they taking a route approved and coordinated with Israel for humanitarian aid transport but they were killed as a result of an Israeli drone attack.
Giving the names of the workers, it added that they may be added to the toll of close to 200 aid workers who have been killed since last Oct. 7.
The attack set off international alarm bells, with many condemning it and demanding a thorough investigation.
The front page received both praise and criticism on social media, with some pointing out how it only came after six months of Israeli attacks killing tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas which killed around 1,200 people.
Some 33,000 Palestinians have since been killed and over 75,000 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which last week asked Tel Aviv to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.