The death of a WCK worker shook Poland. Warsaw launched its own investigation

Beata Starzecká from the Prosecutor’s Office in Przemyśl said that the investigation concerns the death of Polish citizen Damian Soból between April 1 and 2 in the Gaza Strip as a result of an attack by Israeli armed forces in which explosives were used. However, it is not yet possible to provide more information about this case.

Soból was one of seven aid workers killed in Monday’s Israeli attack on a convoy of the non-profit organization World Central Kitchen (WCK). In addition to Poland, the victims also came from Australia and Britain. One victim had dual US-Canadian citizenship, and the attack also claimed the life of a Palestinian aid worker.

The bodies of the six international aid workers killed in the attack were to be flown out of the war-torn Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Wednesday, the director of al-Najjar hospital, Abu Youssef, said, as quoted by AFP.

The attack sparked outrage in many countries around the world, and Israel’s army chief of staff, Herci Halevi, called it a serious mistake on Wednesday. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Tuesday that aid workers were killed in an inadvertent attack by the army.

However, Poland expects from Israel a full explanation of the death of a Polish citizen in this event. The Israeli attack, in which humanitarian workers including a Polish citizen were killed in the Gaza Strip, and the reaction of the Israeli government to it, is a test of the solidarity shown in Poland to Israel. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated this today.

In remarks addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli ambassador in Warsaw, Tusk said that most Poles showed solidarity with Israel after the October attack by the Hamas movement.

“You are currently testing this solidarity. This tragic attack against volunteers and your reactions arouse understandable anger,” Tusk said in a post on the X social network.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski warned that the attack could contribute to the rise of anti-Semitism in Poland and called on Israel to apologize and pay compensation to the victims’ families.

“If it is true that the convoy was deliberately attacked because it would have included a terrorist, and therefore civilian lives were sacrificed. I don’t know of any (political) system in which this would be justified,” Sikorski told Polish radio station Trojka.