UPDATE - 3 British aid workers killed in Israeli strike in Gaza named

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By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) - The three British aid workers who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Monday have been named as James Henderson, John Chapman and James Kirby, media reports said Tuesday.

World Central Kitchen (WCK) has confirmed that the seven food charity workers killed by the airstrike were nationals of Australia, Poland, the UK and Palestine as well as US-Canadian dual citizen.

Later, it was revealed that three of the seven workers were UK citizens.

Following the reports, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: "We're asking Israel to investigate what happened urgently, because clearly there are questions that need to be answered.”

The British Foreign Office summoned Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely over the matter.

James Henderson, 33, was a former Royal Marine from Cornwall, and John Chapman, 57, was a father of two who previously worked for the Special Boat Service, according to the Guardian.

The BBC also named the third Briton as James Kirby.

"The WCK team was traveling in a deconflicted zone in two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle," World Central Kitchen said in a statement.

Despite coordinating movements with the Israeli army, it added that the convoy was hit as it was leaving a warehouse in Deir al-Balah, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza on a maritime route.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas which killed around 1,200 people.

At least 32,916 Palestinians have since been killed and 75,494 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which last week asked it to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.