Aid workers killed in Israeli air strike in Gaza, charity tells BBC

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

A team of charity workers has been killed in Israeli strikes in northern Gaza, the UK-registered Al Khair Foundation has told the BBC.

The charity said eight people - including its volunteers and independent journalists documenting their activities - were killed when their vehicles were targeted on Saturday in what Hamas described as a "blatant violation" of the ceasefire agreement with Israel.
...
Qasim Rashid Ahmad, founder and chairman of the charity, told the BBC the team was in the area to set up tents and document it for the charity's own promotion efforts.

He said that the cameramen came back to the car and were hit, while its team members who rushed to the scene were then struck by an Israeli drone which had followed them when they went to the charity's second car.

Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20d4ylyx57o

[Lonestarblue]

1. Can't have aid workers feeding starving Palestinians and giving them fresh water.

[nowforever]

2. What Hamas did was despicable

What the Israelis are doing is despicable. Those are two truths and neither action is justifiable from any perspective, I believe. I understand self defense and retaliation what I cannot comprehend is the level of heartlessness behind some of these actions. Most religions believe that God is a loving being and yet religion seems to be a catalyst for so many godless acts. Certainly ousting the Palestinian people from the land and turning it into a tourist destination is not a solution.

[enid602]

3. Meek

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.”

[Beastly Boy]

4. A bit more about the UK-registered Al Khair Foundation which reported the incident:

Regulators are investigating a British charity over claims that a Gaza welfare organisation it has funded has close links to Hamas.

The Charity Commission is examining payments made by the We Care Foundation to the Qawafil Al Khair Association in Gaza, as well as other groups.

--snip--

The Qawafil Al Khair Association was founded in 2015 by two convicted Palestinian fighters, Mansour Rayan and Ali Al-Mughrabi.

Earlier this month. Al-Mughrabi was killed in Khan Younis in a targeted Israeli Defense Forces missile strike. Convicted for his part in a terror cell which organised a suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 2002, killing 11 people, he had been released in a prisoner swap in 2011.

Rayan was also freed in the 2011 prisoner swap, having been jailed for breaking into the home of Yoram Sakuri, an Israeli settler in the West Bank, in 1994, stabbing him to death, and wounding his wife.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/25/watchdog-british-charity-payments-hamas-links/

[AloeVera]

5. That is not the agency whose workers were killed.

The Qawafil Al Khair Association you are referring to seems is a local Gaza-based organization.

However the agency whose workers were killed is a U.K.- based Muslim international organization called Al Khair Foundation, founded in 2003. They have worked in disaster zones from Kashmir to Haiti.

Al-Khair Foundation is a UK-based international NGO providing humanitarian support, international development, emergency aid and disaster relief in some of the world’s most deprived areas. Established in 2003 and rapidly growing into one of the leading Muslim charities in the UK, Al-Khair Foundation also looks to tackle issues prevalent in the UK as well, such as unemployment, education, women’s empowerment and domestic violence.

In case you doubt this is the agency in question, they have confirmed it:

Our thoughts are with the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims during this difficult time.

It is with great sadness and regret that we announce the demise in Gaza of eight of our team’s dedicated humanitarian aid workers. They were killed in violation of the agreed ceasefire in a drone airstrike.

The exact circumstances are still being established but we refute utterly any suggestion that those who were killed were militant or in any way connected with Hamas.

It is with deep sadness and regret that we report the tragic loss of eight dedicated humanitarian aid workers in Gaza. The individuals, who were part of a relief mission, lost their lives in a drone airstrike that occurred despite an agreed ceasefire being in place.

...snip...
https://alkhair.org/humanitarian-aid-workers-killed-in-gaza-drone-strike/

When will Israel stop killing aid workers? The goal seems to be to deprive Palestinians of all necessities of life. Surely we can agree that is terribly wrong.

[Hellbound Hellhound]

6. Coincidentally, it's also a known terrorist front. Huh. Imagine that.

According to an online register, the Gaza-based association is sanctioned and labelled as a terrorist organisation in Israel.

However, the organisation, which aims to provide emergency relief services for families in Gaza, has not been sanctioned by the UK government.

https://www.opensanctions.org/entities/il-nbctf-3630222d20f178213861375a60dae3680b0294d9/


So sad that Hamas and their internet-based terrorist supporters continue intensifying and embracing this violent, sadistic, genocidal war of their own making... Wish they'd think of the children.

[Beastly Boy]

7. A search for "al khair foundation" in the database of UK-registered companies returned 220,585 matches

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/search/companies?q=al%20khair%20foundation

I will leave it to you to figure out which of them, if any, is the "al khair" referred to in the article.

I will also leave it to you to figure out which "al khair" employs the Hamas operatives identified by name and position here:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-shares-identities-of-terror-operatives-it-says-were-killed-in-northern-gaza-strike/

And I will also leave it to you to figure out why Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem (https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel-at-war/artc-hamas-proposes-all-in-all-hostage-release-for-permanent-gaza-ceasefire) is speaking on behalf of whatever charity it is that employs those terrorists.

[AloeVera]

8. Only one exact match, and you only have to scroll past one from the top. It's even helpfully marked with a line for you.

But what is your point with that, exactly? No need to answer - really.

By now most people are aware that the IDF labels as "terrorists" or "with Hamas" the hundreds of aid workers and journalists that it has killed. Seems every aid worker and journalist in Gaza is a terrorist - according to the IDF.

The only exception of course was Chef Andres' World Food Kitchen workers. Because they were white Europeans largely, with a NON-MUSLIM world-renowned agency. Hard to label them as such.

No, the IDF kills aid workers and journalists for obvious reasons and it's really quite sickening.

You are mistaken again about Hazzem Qassam speaking on behalf of Al Khair. The paragraphs preceding his quote are as follows:

Video editor Bilal Abu Matar and cameramen Mahmoud Al-Sarraj, Bilal Aqila and Mahmoud Asleem were all named as having been killed in the strike, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.

The organisation accused Israel of carrying out "systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists, who risk their lives to report the truth and expose Israeli crimes to the world".

Several others were injured in the strike, and rushed to the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

A spokesman for the group, Hazem Qassem, accused Israel of having "committed a horrific massacre in the northern Gaza Strip".

Clearly "the group" Qassem belongs to is either the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, or - much more likely, given the order of the paragraphs - the Hamas-run health ministry, or just Hamas. Not Al-Khar. Nowhere in the article is it claimed that Qassem belongs to, or "speaks on behalf of" Al Khair.

I have nothing further to add except to say the continued killing of aid workers and journalists is shameful - as is the continued starvation of Gaza. Surely no one here would agree that targeting aid workers and using starvation to achieve war goals is worthy of defending.

[Beastly Boy]

9. My point is that you made a claim, and I decided to check it.

Last edited Sun Mar 16, 2025, 09:43 PM - Edit history (1)

You may not be used to being checked, but what I found was that the evidence for your claim is inconclusive. I still can't believe that you checked all the 200,000 plus entries matching the search criteria, but it was a formality that I left for you to explore. I am not sure what "helpfully marked with a line for you" means - all of the entries are helpfully marked with a line, and I didn't find it particularly helpful for me. If you mean a vertical line to the left of the name, you might find it helpful for you to read what it signifies: "Matching previous names". And the second entry that you found particularly helpful, having only one entry before it, signifies that the #1 and the #2 on the list are a match. I know you didn't look past the first page because the second page also contains an entry marked with an identical line, just for me.

But no need to elaborate on this any further - you might not be particularly surprised if I told you that this is just a distraction, and that I have a bigger point to make: we know that IDF identified the terrorists rather quickly and precisely, one of them being a terrorist that was previously released in a hostage exchange despite being convicted of a double murder, an inconvenient fact which proves the statements by Qasim Rashid Ahmad, Hazem Qassem and yourself to be demonstrably false. And IDF has yet to be proven wrong when they identify their targets with published verifiable names and ranks, as is the case in question.

We also know that just about every thug with an iphone and a loud mouth ( matching AK47 optional) turns out to be a journalist in Gaza. On closer examination, they also turn out to be on Hamas payroll with remarkable consistency.

As far as Mr Hazem Qassem, he may be a spokesman for Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, or for Hamas, or for Khaled Mashaal, or whoever else appoints him a spokesman. That doesn't mean he is not speaking on behalf of the terrorists being represented by Al Khair as their employees, no membership dues expected. Speaking on someone's behalf doesn't require any bona fides beyond speaking in their support and/or in their interest.

And it goes without saying that I didn't expect you to add anything more than you already said many times before, absent of any deviation from your predictable and well rehearsed narrative, as usual.

[AloeVera]

10. No, you made the original claim and it was *I* who decided to check it.

You misidentified the agency in question. By doing so, an aspersion was cast on the agency that suffered the losses. "Terrorists" and all that.

Generally, when I make a mistake I swallow my pride and admit to it. I try to, anyways, my false pride sometimes gets in the way. But I find a bit of graciousness and humility goes a long way toward making amends. When I double down - knowing I am wrong - or deflect, distract or never own up to it - I find my mental health suffers. But that's just me, YMMV.

As for your claim around #1 and #2 in the database you linked to. I'm afraid you made another error. The full text in question is:
Matching previous names:
AL-KHAIR EDUCATIONAL & CULTURAL CENTRES

No, it is not a reference to the agency listed above it. Instead, it is a reference to a name change - they changed their legal name after expanding their mandate in 2005. They were previously known as that.

Please go ahead and argue further if you wish. It would be totally irrelevant though. I would just simply admit that error too but again, that's just me.

[Beastly Boy]

11. You checking the original claim and me checking your response are not mutually exclusive, are they?

And if swallowing your pride manifests itself in you withholding your acknowledgement of being proven wrong or you declaring intent to use the ignore function (the two most common outcomes in my experience), there isn't much to swallow, is there? Not that I intend to affect your mental health in any way or to otherwise trespass on your privacy with unwanted attention - I wish you the best in that respect.

Something that you might clarify for me: how can one cast an aspersion on a party that had been implicated in the aspersion that you perceive? Wouldn't it be accurate to call it an offence? Granted, it wasn't me who implicated the organization, whatever they call themselves at any given moment, it was IDF. I merely questioned their identity, and I still do. But having established the fact that they employed Hamas operatives and at least one terrorist convicted of double murder, isn't the matter of who was first to question whom kind of moot?

I do, however, understand your desire to dwell on a moot subject - it makes efforts to avoid any mention of giving aid and comfort to known war criminals a bit less noticeable.

But I get it, that's just you.

[Celerity]

12. Here is the correct foundation, I found it instantly, and it is NOT at all terrorism linked, others here are giving the

wrong group (Qawafil Al-Khair Association https://www.qawafel.org/en/ and Gaza-based) and trying to (quelle surprise) conflate it with Al-Khair Foundation https://alkhair.org/ which is UK based. It is bad faith disinformation tactics, designed to distract from the killings by Israel and to muddy the water, drag the thread off into the weeds.

Al-Khair simply means 'goodness' in Arabic, btw.




https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/4037542/trustees



from the OP BBC article, notice the name is the same as the UK registry:

Qasim Rashid Ahmad, founder and chairman of the charity, told the BBC the team was in the area to set up tents and document it for the charity's own promotion efforts.

https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/4037542/contact-information








https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/aoIzjK15WjwG16YMjMiqyh-zUaU/appointments

[Beastly Boy]

13. Thank you, but I found no information there about their employees, whose names

and stations within Hamas were published by IDF as targets of the precision hit in question (https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-shares-identities-of-terror-operatives-it-says-were-killed-in-northern-gaza-strike/ ). At this point, the identity of their employer is a formality that doesn't change the fact that the said employer retained services of known Hamas operatives, including a terrorist released in a hostage exchange who was serving a life sentence for a double murder. The organization in question, whatever their name happens to be, acknowledged employing those same individuals.

So either the organization whose data you posted is linked to terrorism, or you posted the wrong data. You cannot have it both ways. You are welcome to choose which part of your post is wrong and speculate on the the implications of either one of your choices.

I would suggest that claiming an organization employing a notorious terrorist "is NOT at all terrorism linked" is a bit beyond bad faith.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Or the IDF is making up the "terrorist links" for the individuals.

You don't seem able to contemplate that. Just because it's claimed by the IDF, it doesn't magically become a "fact".

[Beastly Boy]

15. I have yet to hear of a single instance of successful challenge to IDF upon their publishing the identities

of their targets, including photos, names, affiliations and ranks. In this instance, if you read my post, you have the link.

Conversely, there have been a number of instances (most notorious of them involving UNRWA) in which denials by various groups of their affiliates being directly linked to Hamas have been proven false by IDF and were retracted.

No magic, just verifiable facts, no matter how long one is inclined to contemplate them out of existence.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. I don't think "verifiable" means what you think it does. Or "facts". (nt)

[Beastly Boy]

21. I think both "verifiable" and "facts" means exactly what I think it means. (nt)

[AloeVera]

20. Thanks for the chuckle!

It's my only response.

[Beastly Boy]

22. Thanks for having a sense of humor!

(however peculiar it may come across).

[maxsolomon]

16. This sentence is odd:

Qasim Rashid Ahmad, founder and chairman of the charity, told the BBC the team was in the area to set up tents and document it for the charity's own promotion efforts

So, they were filming a commercial?

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. I don't know if you've ever had contact with a charity before

but they do indeed document their activities to explain to current and potential donors what they do.

[maxsolomon]

19. That makes it sound like they weren't setting them up for use by displaced Gazans

but rather solely to film it. Hence odd.

I am now at the point where my instinctual reaction is to disbelieve anything any party says r.e. Gaza - and Ukraine.