The family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin appears on a screen via video link during a news conference in Tel Aviv

Former US president Trump's hush money criminal trial continues in New York City, USA - 13 May 2024

Trump

The Washington Post

US-POLITICS-JUSTICE-COURT-TRUMP

Contributor

For The Washington Post

(Chris Gash for The Washington Post)

APTOPIX Israel Holocaust Remembrance

op-allen-democracypromo

Stormy Daniels

UGCR

RUSSIA-US-DIPLOMACY-BASKET-COURT

(Michelle Kondrich/The Washington Post)

**ONE TIME USE ONLY FOR OP-LAMOTT

Sonia Sotomayor,Clarence Thomas,John Roberts,Samuel Alito,Elena Kagan,Amy Coney Barrett,Neil Gorsuch,Brett Kavanaugh,Ketanji Brown Jackson,Michael Dreeben

Children holding hands

ONE TIME USE FOR OP-CARNEY KIDS 

FEDERALISTGALA

Four Dalmatian Puppy

other

People visit the site of the Nova festival, in Reim

Fake Electors Indictment Arizona

Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

CNN gets a presidential debate — and a much-needed win

Netflix will air NFL’s Christmas games, a major step for streaming service

Sam Feist, longtime CNN executive, will become CEO of C-SPAN

Only in the surreal Fox universe can James Comer be treated as credible

Trump’s ‘they’re out to get me’ campaign and its enablers

Voters key to past Democratic wins are skeptical and undermotivated

6 Airbnb red flags to spot before you make a booking mistake

Some cruise prices are about to get a little more clear

Cruise ships to return to Baltimore two months after bridge collapse 

Puppy abandoned with heart-rending note is adopted, named Minerva

Man, 91, shocks tiny firehouse with $500K gift: ‘Nobody knew how much I’d saved’

Retired cop meets abandoned baby he helped 23 years ago: ‘What are the odds?’

Bryce Harper, Joey Gallo and a bond forged by baseball since they were kids

Rating every game on the Commanders’ 2024 schedule

The 34 best things to do in D.C. this weekend and next week

Senators studied AI for a year. Critics call the result ‘pathetic.’

Google’s AI answers could come back to bite it

Cruise settles with person dragged under one of its robotaxis

Ask Amy: Retired couple misses social activities since the pandemic

Miss Manners: Longtime friends lose minds over canceled dinner plans

Carolyn Hax: After holiday meals, guests rush the kitchen to claim the leftovers

Look to the cloud to protect the life documents saved on your computer

Can you spot bad financial advice on TikTok? Take our quiz.

5 myths about Social Security as the program faces a funding crisis

Second Russian invasion of Kharkiv caught Ukraine unprepared

Russia seizes more land than Ukraine liberated in 2023 counteroffensive

Kenyan president aims to attract green investment during U.S. visit

Rep. AOC's 'people-first' approach

Rep. Cori Bush: Activism is 'part of who I am'

Roy Lichtenstein’s pop-art take on Eve hides some deep theology

Tariffs against China hamstring the transition to a clean energy future

The Post’s choices in Northern Virginia’s U.S. House primaries

States see legalized sports betting as a tax windfall — but at what cost?

Jose Luis Magana

<i>José Andrés is founder and chief feeding officer of World Central Kitchen.</i>

Our decision to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2024/04/28/world-central-kitchen-gaza-resumes-aid/" target=_blank>resume feeding in Gaza</a> is both the hardest and the simplest one we could make.

Hardest because barely a month has passed since Israeli forces <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/01/world-central-kitchen-gaza-deaths-wck/" target=_blank>killed seven of our World Central Kitchen</a> family, despite knowing their location, movements and the nature of their essential work. Our colleagues risked everything to feed people they did not know.

Yet it’s a simple decision for us because the need is so great. We cannot stand by while so many people are so desperate for the essentials of life. Food is a universal human right, and we will not cease until those basic human rights are respected.

This week, we are restarting our operations at scale: We have 276 trucks, representing almost 8 million meals, ready to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing in the south. We are also sending trucks from Jordan as we push to distribute food into northern Gaza, where<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/03/gaza-famine-family-soupkitchen/" target=_blank> the situation is most dire</a>.

These convoys will be met by our partners in Gaza. The vast majority of our work around the world is done by locals, not by international staff: Ukrainians feeding in Ukraine, Moroccans feeding Moroccans, and, in Gaza, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/03/gaza-famine-family-soupkitchen/" target=_blank>Palestinians feeding Palestinians</a>.

But we are returning to Gaza with what is at best a limited understanding of how humanitarian aid workers will be protected in the coming weeks and months.

We expect and insist that the Israel Defense Forces protect and respect the lives and work of our Palestinian team members, just like citizens from other nations.

That sort of treatment has been rare since we have been in the region. For example, though every team member is vetted and cleared before every food delivery mission, our Palestinian team members have been stripped and humiliated by Israeli soldiers while engaged in work that has been coordinated with, and approved by, the IDF.

Our convoys have been held up at IDF checkpoints for hours on end, despite coordination with the Israeli government groups who run point on humanitarian aid.

Those delays create crowds <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/11/israel-aid-gaza-banned-blocked/" target=_blank>desperate to receive food</a>, add to the food panic and push our missions into nightfall, dramatically increasing the dangers faced by our aid workers.

After the April 1 attack, the IDF issued general statements about improving communication between aid groups such as ours and its own military operators. We welcome those statements, as we welcome the increase in aid that is now flowing into Gaza.

But the communication failures inside the IDF continue. There are multiple reports of other convoys coming under fire since April 1, signaling that little has changed to increase protection.

The biggest challenge is the one the Netanyahu government has failed to address. Without law and order on the ground in Gaza, there is a constant threat to civilians around any food aid. Humanitarian groups have very limited means to establish security to protect our own workers — or the civilians we are trying to help.

The IDF cannot police Gaza through airstrikes, faulty intelligence, AI-enhanced analysis and dismal communications.

As we resume operations, we need to see Israeli forces step up to their responsibilities and promises to let humanitarian groups do their work. We expect the IDF to develop, communicate and deliver clear safety protocols and measures for humanitarian aid workers across Gaza immediately.

These should include reliable, direct and secure communications with aid workers on the ground, live tracking of aid convoys, clear lists of deconflicted zones, and approval for international media to report on our operations.

We expect the IDF to abide by its own protocols, chain of command, laws of war and moral values. We expect it to do a better job of communicating with itself. We expect the IDF to cooperate with an independent investigation into airstrikes on our own team. Details continue to leak about the airstrikes, and the IDF has yet to hand over its own evidence to us for review.

We also expect the Biden administration to hold the Netanyahu government true to its commitments on humanitarian aid.

If the Israeli government cannot or will not fully explain how it will protect humanitarian aid workers in Gaza, it can at least do one thing. May 12 is <a href="https://www.touristisrael.com/yom-hazikaron-in-israel/6019/" target=_blank>Yom Hazikaron</a> — the day of remembrance — in Israel. It’s a solemn day when the sirens sound, life comes to a halt, and people remember those who have died in war and as victims of terrorism.

This day of remembrance will be a heavy one. There is too much suffering in Palestine, in Israel and across the Middle East. The hostages need to be freed by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/israel-hamas-war/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Hamas</a>; a cease-fire needs to begin.

My hope and my prayer are that the names of our seven heroes will be remembered and mourned in Israel, as they are in Gaza, Britain, Canada, Australia and Poland.

Sharing our grief is as human as sharing our food. It’s a small step toward healing and hope in a world that desperately needs both.

José Andrés

washpost

Why we are going back to Gaza to feed people

the-washington-post

Jose Andres

Editorials

Columns

Guest opinions

Cartoons

Submit a guest opinion

Today's Opinions newsletter

Opinions

Sign up for the Prompt 2024 newsletter for opinions on the biggest questions in politics

Washington Post Opinions

The Washington Post Opinions section features opinion articles, op-eds, editorials by the Editorial Board, global opinions and letters to the editor on the issues of the day. Offerings include columns by Washington Post opinion writers, political cartoons by editorial cartoonists Ann Telnaes and Michael de Adder and podcasts by Jonathan Capehart.