A stone pulpit within the Nationwide Cathedral in Washington, D.C., isn’t any place the chef José Andrés anticipated to be when he created the meals charity World Central Kitchen practically 15 years in the past. However on Thursday he stood there, eulogizing seven of the group’s employees who have been killed within the Gaza Strip whereas making an attempt to hold out a singular mission: bringing meals right into a area of two.2 million individuals going through a rising humanitarian disaster.
“They risked everything to feed people they did not know and will never meet,” Mr. Andrés mentioned. “They were the best of humanity.”
The seven employees have been killed on April 1 after they helped unload a barge of meals assist in northern Gaza and have been heading to the southern metropolis Rafah. Their well-marked convoy of automobiles was hit by armed Israeli drones. Israeli army officers mentioned the assault was a critical mistake that shouldn’t have occurred. They cited a collection of failures, together with a breakdown in communication and violations of the army’s personal guidelines of engagement.
An unusually subdued and sometimes tearful Mr. Andrés mentioned he was consumed with remorse, sorrow and anger over the deaths. “I know there are also many questions about why World Central Kitchen was in Gaza,” he mentioned. “We ask ourselves the same questions day and night.”
However the employees took the chance, he mentioned, as a result of they believed that displaying up and feeding individuals of their darkest hours would allow them to know they weren’t alone.
“Food is a universal human right,” Mr. Andrés mentioned. “Feeding each other, cooking and eating together is what makes us human. The dishes we cook and deliver are not just ingredients, or calories. A plate of food is a plate of hope. “
Attendance at the service, which included prayers and readings by Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders, and a musical interlude by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, was by invitation — although the service was streamed live on World Central Kitchen’s website. The organization and Mr. Andrés restaurant group are based in Washington.
Funerals for the victims have already been held, but this was the only memorial observed in the United States. Among the 560 people attending were Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris; representatives from three of the victims’ families; and a few dozen World Central Kitchen volunteers and contractors who had worked together in disasters and conflicts across the globe. They filled only a small part of the cathedral, which has been the site of four presidential state funerals and memorials for victims of the 9/11 attacks.
While the World Central Kitchen deaths sparked global outrage, more than 220 other aid workers have also been killed in Gaza.
But the seven were the first casualties the organization has endured since Mr. Andrés dreamed up the group while doing culinary relief work in Haiti after a 2010 earthquake.
His concept was simple: Chefs living in the areas hit by disaster could feed suffering people more quickly and often with more delicious and comforting food than traditional relief organizations.
Mr. Andrés leveraged his connections, charisma and the clever use of social media to amass an army of culinary volunteers and build World Central Kitchen into a $550 million worldwide enterprise.
Last week, hundreds of mourners, including Mr. Andrés and a representative from the office of the Polish president, attended a Roman Catholic Mass in Przemysl, Poland, the hometown of the slain worker Damian Sobol.
Mr. Sobol, 35, an exuberant former hospitality student who was engaged to be married, began helping World Central Kitchen feed Ukrainian war refugees pouring into a Polish train station in early 2022. He became a logistical wizard for the organization as it set up operations in other places, including Gaza.
Mr. Andrés also attended a service last week in St.-Georges, Quebec, for Jacob Flickinger, 33, an avid outdoorsman and former member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Mr. Flickinger began working for the organization in October, helping feed residents after a hurricane near Acapulco, Mexico. Then he headed to Gaza.
“We discussed the risk,” his father, John Flickinger, mentioned in an interview with The Associated Press shortly after his son was killed. “He said basically, “Dad, people are starving there and I think I can help. And I appreciated that.”
On Thursday, Mr. Andrés broke into tears as he eulogized Lalzawmi Frankcom, 43, an Australian whom everybody known as Zomi. She was like a sister to him, he mentioned — powerful and humorous, and essentially the most senior member of the workforce in Gaza.
She first volunteered in 2018 when a volcano erupted in Guatemala, and went on to assist victims of floods in Bangladesh, earthquakes in Morocco, poverty in Venezuela and wildfires in California. She had just lately been named senior supervisor for World Central Kitchen’s Asia operations and was based mostly in Bangkok.
Saifeddin Abutaha, a 25-year-old Palestinian on the reduction workforce, had been translating and driving for the group because the starting of the yr. He had returned from the United Arab Emirates to assist together with his household’s flour mill. He had contacts in Israel, which helped the group coordinate permissions.
The remaining three employees — John Chapman, 57, James Kirby, 47, and Jim Henderson, 33 — have been a part of a British-based safety agency known as Solace International. They’d been employed as a part of the group’s safety workforce. All three had served in numerous arms of the British army.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in October 2022, World Central Kitchen waded right into a battle for the primary time. When Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the group rapidly arrange reduction kitchens in Israel, after which expanded its mission to assist Palestinians in Gaza, the place hundreds of thousands are on the point of famine.
The seven employees had spent a protracted day serving to unload a barge with greater than 100 tons of meals that World Central Kitchen and Open Arms, a Spanish nonprofit, had shipped to the Gaza coast from Cyprus, and have been headed to Rafah to sleep. At simply previous 10 p.m. Gaza time, the primary of three automobiles carrying the employees was hit by armed drones. The automobiles — white and with distinguished World Central Kitchen logos — had been cleared by Israel for passage.
Inside minutes, the drones hit the second after which the third automobile.
“I know we all have many unanswered questions about what happened and why,” Mr. Andrés mentioned in his eulogy. “We still demand an independent investigation into the actions of the IDF against our team.”
World Central Kitchen instantly paused work in Gaza after the bombing. The group is predicted to announce its subsequent steps there quickly, mentioned Linda Roth, its communications officer.
Mr. Andrés indicated he isn’t more likely to stroll away. He learn a message from Mr. Abutaha’s brother, who wrote, “I hope that World Central Kitchen continues its humanitarian work around the world, carrying on the spirit of the fallen and the resilience of the Palestinian people.”
Zach Montague contributed reporting.
