An Israeli airstrike has killed a Palestinian aid worker who played an instrumental role in delivering humanitarian relief in the Gaza Strip, according to his family members and colleagues.
The worker, Mohammed al-Waheidi, 65, served as a member of the Egyptian Committee in Gaza, a relief group. In addition to facilitating deliveries of humanitarian aid, the committee helps resolve disputes between families, and was organizing World Cup watch parties around Gaza over the past few weeks.
The Israeli military said it had struck a Hamas militant in the attack on Tuesday in northern Gaza, but did not identify that person or say whether they had been killed. It said in a statement that it was aware of “the claim that uninvolved civilians were harmed as a result of the strike” and “regrets any harm” to such people.
Israeli forces have been carrying out frequent airstrikes in Gaza despite signing a U.S.-backed cease-fire deal with Hamas last October. Israeli officials have said the military has been going after Hamas militants who participated in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which ignited the war in Gaza.
Israel said 1,200 people were killed in the Oct. 7 attack and about 250 more were taken back to Gaza as hostages. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says that more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza were killed during the war.
While the military has issued many announcements saying its strikes in Gaza have killed Hamas militants, interviews with medical officials in Gaza and hospital records indicate that Israel has also killed civilians over the past nine months.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the October cease-fire, including children, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Mr. al-Waheidi was in a car on his way to a friend’s house to watch the Argentina-Egypt World Cup match on Tuesday night when he was hit by the Israeli strike, according to his son, Fawaz, 22. It was not immediately clear where he was in relation to the targeted Hamas militant.
The younger Mr. al-Waheidi said in a telephone interview that he was told on Tuesday evening that an airstrike had killed a person with his last name. He frantically tried calling his father, but a stranger answered the phone and said only that someone had been wounded.
He said he then raced to the hospital, where he identified a bloodied body as belonging to his father.
“I was totally stunned,” he said. “He was such a good man.”
Fawaz said his father was a supporter of peace with Israelis. He had worked in Israel years ago and was a teacher for the Palestinian Authority, the Western-backed government that Hamas expelled from Gaza in 2007 and which now administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
He also said that Hamas had arrested and tortured his father before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack because of his opposition to the group.
“He was persecuted by them,” he said of Hamas.
Ismail Thawabteh, the director general of the Hamas-run government media office in Gaza, declined to comment.
Mohammed Mansour, a spokesman for the Egyptian Committee, said Mr. al-Waheidi had managed the group’s relations with local leaders. He coordinated with them to ensure the safe delivery of aid in Gaza, where two years of war have devastated the territory and left hundreds of thousands of people displaced and living in tents.
Fawaz said he did not want anyone to use his father’s killing for more violence.
“What we need is peace,” he said. “May God have mercy on my father.”
