Polish PM Tusk says Gaza aid worker deaths cause ‘understandable anger’
WARSAW (Reuters) -An Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers including a Polish national in Gaza and the reaction of Israel’s prime minister have caused “understandable anger” and strained relations, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday the airstrike that killed the World Central Kitchen charity workers was tragic and unintended, adding, “This happens in war.”
Israel’s ambassador to Poland Yacov Livne said in a post on social media platform X on Tuesday that the “extreme right and left” in Poland were accusing Israel of intentional murder, adding that “antisemites will always remain antisemites”.
Tusk wrote on X: “Mr. Prime Minister Netanyahu, Mr. Ambassador Livne, the vast majority of Poles showed full solidarity with Israel after the Hamas attack (on Oct. 7).”
“Today you are putting this solidarity to a really hard test. The tragic attack on volunteers and your (Netanyahu’s) reaction arouse understandable anger.”
Netanyahu also said Israel was conducting a thorough inquiry and would do everything to avoid a recurrence of the incident.
“Israel has repeatedly expressed our deep regret, sorrow and condolences over the tragic death of World Central Kitchen workers including Damian Sobol, a Polish citizen,” Livne said in a statement to Reuters.
“It is regrettable that people at the extreme right and extreme left in Poland use this human tragedy to attack Israel, a country fighting against Hamas jihadi terrorism to defend our civilization and our common values.”
The mayor of the city of Przemysl in southeastern Poland identified the Polish volunteer who was killed as Damian Sobol.
Prosecutors in Przemysl told state news agency PAP that they had launched an investigation into Sobol’s death.
Meanwhile, the local governor of the Podkarpackie region, where Przemysl is located, agreed to a request by Livne to make contact with Sobol’s family, a local authority spokesperson told PAP.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish; editing by Tomasz Janowski, Mark Heinrich and Kevin Liffey and Bernadette Baum)
