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BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityWorldAfricaAsiaAustraliaEuropeLatin AmericaMiddle EastUS & CanadaFears for Gazans as aid groups halt work over deadly Israeli strikePublished2 days agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingRelated TopicsIsrael-Gaza warImage source, EPAImage caption, Israel’s military said the strike on World Central Kitchen’s convoy was a “grave mistake” and vowed to protect aid workersBy David Gritten & Mahmoud Elnaggar BBC News and BBC ArabicMany Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will be wondering how they are going to feed their families after World Central Kitchen (WCK) paused its operations in response to the killing of seven of its aid workers in an Israeli air strike. Another US charity it works with, Anera, has also suspended work because of the escalating risks faced by its local staff and their families. Together, they were serving two million meals a week across the Palestinian territory, where the UN has warned that an estimated 1.1 million people – half the population – are facing catastrophic hunger because of Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries, the ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of order.WCK’s decision to pause its work also led to the “freezing” of a maritime aid corridor from Cyprus, which the charity helped set up last month to increase the trickle of aid getting into the north of Gaza and avert a looming famine.The WCK convoy was hit on Monday night as it travelled south along the Israeli-designated coastal aid route, just after they had unloaded more than 100 tonnes of food from a barge at a warehouse in Deir al-Balah.That barge was part of a four-vessel flotilla that sailed back to Cyprus with 240 tonnes of supplies that could not be brought ashore in the wake of the strike. The Norwegian Refugee Council warned that “what happened to World Central Kitchen threatens the entire aid system” and had left it “on the brink”.Image source, @chefjoseandresImage caption, Before the strike, World Central Kitchen was providing about 350,000 meals across Gaza each dayWCK accused the Israeli military of a “targeted attack” on vehicles clearly marked with the charity’s logo and whose movements had been co-ordinated with Israeli authorities. The victims were British, Polish, Australian and Palestinian, and also included a dual US-Canadian citizen.The military’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, described the strike as a “grave mistake” that had followed “misidentification at night”.He also vowed to take “immediate action” to ensure that more was done to protect aid workers, including the immediate establishment of a new “humanitarian command centre” to improve co-ordination. “Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the people of Gaza,” he stressed.However, aid groups say they are not sure such promises will lead to meaningful changes. They also assert that this was not an isolated incident, with 196 Palestinian aid workers reportedly killed since the war began in October.Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council and a former UN humanitarian chief, told the BBC that WCK was “among those who have the closest co-operation with the Israelis”, in terms of sharing information about their workers’ locations and planned movements.Before the strike, WCK was playing an increasingly prominent and important role in Gaza, with 400 Palestinian staff and 3,000 people working indirectly for it in its 68 community kitchens and distribution system. WCK has provided 12% of the 193,000 tonnes of aid from international organisations that had reached Gaza since October, according to data from Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry body tasked with co-ordinating deliveries. However, UN agencies were responsible for 80% of the total. WCK’s founder, the chef José Andrés, told Reuters news agency on Wednesday that it was “analysing the situation and how to keep doing the work we do”.Anera – which was providing 150,000 meals a day in collaboration with WCK – said it understood the consequences pausing its own work would have on Palestinians, but that its Palestinian staff had for the first time deemed the risk to their safety and that of their families “intolerable”.It said the charity’s logistics co-ordinator and his son had been killed in an Israeli air strike in Deir al-Balah in March, despite the fact that the co-ordinates of the shelter where they were staying had been provided to the Israeli military.”We’ve asked for explanation as to why that site was struck and we’ve received none,” Derek Madsen of Anera told the BBC. “These sites are known and so I think it is very difficult for us to understand how these strikes happen.”BBC VERIFY: What do we know so far?JEREMY BOWEN: The war is at a crossroadsWORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN: Facing danger to feed millionsCharity founder ‘heartbroken’ over workers’ deathsANALYSIS: Deadly strike shows aid workers’ protection in crisis, agencies sayPROFILES: Who were the seven aid workers killed in Gaza?Project Hope, another US-based organisation, paused its work for three days in solidarity with WCK and to “reassess the security situation as we prioritise our staff members’ safety”. Arlan Fuller, director of emergency preparedness and response, said in a statement sent to the BBC that its employees were deeply concerned by the deaths of the WCK team, and that the strike has raised significant doubts about the effectiveness of co-ordination with the Israeli military.For the people of Gaza, the suspension of WCK’s operations “means more famine, more dead children, more epidemic disease because people are so malnourished”, Mr Egeland warned. At least 27 children are reported to have died as a result of malnutrition since October, according to the World Health Organization.Mr Egeland urged Israel to start by opening the Karni and Erez border crossings with northern Gaza to allow aid convoys to drive there directly. Most aid convoys are currently forced to start at the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom and Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossings with the south of Gaza and then pass through what the UN calls “high-risk areas”, mainly due to shooting and shelling or the breakdown in civil order.Cogat says Israeli forces have co-ordinated the entry of more than 500 lorries into the north over the past two months via those routes as well as a new gate and military road that runs south of Gaza City.Israel has also facilitated the now-suspended maritime corridor set up by WCK as well as airdrops of aid by Western and Arab countries. The UN says both are helpful but cannot replace the large-scale delivery of aid by land. The first WCK aid ship was carrying 200 tonnes of aid and took several days to reach Gaza. By comparison, a lorry can carry about 20 tonnes and the nearest Israeli container port is only a 40km drive from northern Gaza.A C-130 transport plane meanwhile has a maximum payload of 21 tonnes, but only about 40 airdrops have taken place so far and they are considered expensive, ineffective and dangerous for people on the ground. The UN says 159 lorry loads of aid crossed into Gaza by land each day on average between 1 and 28 March, and that the pre-war average was 500 lorry loads, including fuel.Cogat says the pre-war average only included 70 food lorries and that 140 entered each day during March. It insists there is no limit to the amount of food and other humanitarian aid that can enter Gaza and accuses UN agencies of failing to distribute aid effectively.Image source, ReutersImage caption, The Open Arms. a Spanish charity vessel, returned to Cyprus on Wednesday after the maritime aid route was suspendedThere was no apparent drop-off in aid crossing into Gaza following the strike on the WCK convoy, with 217 lorries transferred via Israel and Egypt on Wednesday and 179 food packages being airdropped, according to Cogat. But Nate Mook, who was chief executive of WCK until 2022, warned that the longer-term consequences could be “devastating” for Gazans because “we probably have not seen the last of the aid organisations to pull out”.Zawar Ali of International Medical Corps told the BBC that it was reconsidering its safety protocols and whether to restrict its workers’ movements. It had already decided to relocate its field hospital from the north of Rafah to al-Mawasi, an area to the west which the Israeli military has declared “humanitarian zone” but has still carried out strikes on what it says are Hamas targets. Dr Bashar Murad, the executive director of the Palestinian Red Crescent, said many of its paramedics were refusing to evacuate wounded and sick people from the north to the south in their ambulances due to the lack of safety guarantees, despite their protection under international law and co-ordination efforts by international organisations.Aseel Baidoun of Medical Aid for Palestinians said it had not suspended operations after a strike in January damaged a residential compound in al-Mawasi that housed the British charity’s local team and their families, injuring several people. But now, she added: “We really are scared of the security [situation].””If a foreigner with international immunity is bombed and killed, then what will they do to us?” Mohammed Aborjela, a Palestinian online content creator who launched the Youth of Gaza initiative to deliver aid after the war began, told BBC.He said Palestinian aid workers faced higher risks and greater challenges than their international colleagues, but insisted it would not stop him and his colleagues continuing their work. “The danger of not providing aid is no less important than the danger of being killed,” he added.Natalia Anguera of Action Against Hunger also said it would try to continue working despite “more and more challenging” conditions. “Most of our staff are… Palestinians. They are suffering themselves, but they also have a very strong and clear commitment to their humanitarian mandate. They want to go on delivering,” she told the BBC. She said the international community needed to push strongly for a humanitarian ceasefire because it was the only way that aid organisations would be able to scale up their response to the level required.Mr Egeland also stressed the importance of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which he said was “bigger than the rest of us combined” but was being “systematically undermined by Israel”.Israel accuses UNRWA of supporting Hamas, which triggered the war when its gunmen attacked southern Israel on 7 October last year. The agency has denied this, but in January it sacked nine of the 12 employees accused in an Israeli document of playing a part in the attacks.UNRWA called for a “complete reversal in policies” from Israel in response to Monday’s strike, including lifting the ban on it delivering aid to northern Gaza.Related TopicsIsrael-Gaza warIsraelPalestinian territoriesMore on this storyAid worker’s family criticises selling Israel armsPublished2 days agoBiden ‘outraged’ over Israel strike on aid workersPublished4 days agoWhat we know about Israeli strike on aid convoyPublished1 day agoTop StoriesJeremy Bowen: Obstacles to peace seem larger than everPublished5 hours agoLive. 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BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountLiveNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityWorldAfricaAsiaAustraliaEuropeLatin AmericaMiddle EastUS & CanadaUkraine war: The sea drones keeping Russia’s warships at bayPublished4 hours agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingRelated TopicsWar in UkraineThis video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.Media caption, The Magura V5 sea drone has been used to sink five Russian ships to date, Ukraine saysBy Abdujalil AbdurasulovBBC News, UkraineIt was a dark night when the attack happened. Ukrainian drones were approaching fast through the water. By the time the crew of the Russian patrol ship Sergey Kotov saw them, it was too late. Russian sailors opened fire with heavy machine guns, but their ship was hit and destroyed. Ukrainian sea drones have revolutionised naval warfare over the last few years, relentlessly hunting down Russian ships in the open sea and even at naval bases. Group-13, a secretive unit of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, was behind the Sergey Kotov attack last week, and the BBC has been given rare access to its operations. Since it was set up last year, the unit says it has sunk five Russian vessels and damaged others. But its commander, who asked us to refer to him by his call sign, Thirteenth, says the Sergey Kotov was the most difficult target so far. Group-13 had attacked and damaged the ship twice in the past, but only managed to sink it on the third attempt.Image source, Ministry Of Defence Of UkraineImage caption, Footage released by Ukraine purported to show the Sergey Kotov being sunk by dronesCommander Thirteenth took us to a peaceful-looking corner of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast to show us one of the unit’s naval drones in operation. The Magura V5, named after a Slavic goddess of war, looks like a small motorboat with a flat surface instead of passenger seats.”It doesn’t emit a lot of heat, so it’s almost invisible for thermal cameras. It’s made from plastic, therefore even radars struggle to see it,” says Thirteenth.Produced by the Ukrainian armed forces, the drone’s claimed range is 800km (500 miles), so it can easily reach the Crimean peninsula and even the Russian coastline. It can allegedly carry 250kg of payload, enough to sink a warship.The boat’s remote control looks like one of those specially adapted nuclear briefcases, used by world leaders in Hollywood films to authorise the use of nuclear weapons. There is even a red toggle switch for “manual detonation”, explains Thirteenth.The drone is controlled from base via a satellite link. “You can control if from any part of the world if you have internet,” says Thirteenth. The Magura V5 has back-up connections in case the main one fails, he adds. Image caption, The drones are hard to spot because of their speed and size, says Commander ThirteenthHe admits that Russian electronic warfare systems can jam the signal, but he claims the drones are able to overcome it. Unsurprisingly, he did not want to elaborate how.When a Magura drone is targeting a Russian ship, it can allegedly sail up to 80km/h (50mph). Thanks to its speed and size – 6m (20ft) long – it’s hard to spot, especially among the waves at night. Last week the crew of Sergey Kotov found that out the hard way.Dodging bulletsSoldiers on Russian ships try to destroy approaching drones with heavy machine guns. But it’s hard to hit them as they are so small and manoeuvrable.The use of special tracer ammunition, which lights up when discharged, helps Russian soldiers to direct their fire at night. However, those rounds also help Ukrainian drone operators dodge bullets. “They show us where the fire is coming from, where they hit and which direction we should take to manoeuvre,” says Thirteenth. Judging by footage of past attacks, several drones are usually involved in a single attack in order to increase the chances of hitting the target.Operations to hunt down a warship can last for days. Operators must stay focused the entire time. “After finishing my work, I’m as exhausted as a squeezed lemon,” Thirteenth quips.Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR, does not disclose the cost of its drones. However, Thirteenth clams that the Russian missile boat Ivanovets, which was destroyed by Group-13 last month, would have cost Russia more than all drones produced by HUR since the beginning of 2023. Making the Russian fleet vulnerableUkraine’s success with naval drones in this war dates back to the 2022 attack on the flagship Admiral Makarov. That operation was conducted by the SBU, Ukraine’s secret service, which also produces its own Sea Baby and Mamay drones. It also carried out drone attacks last year on the Kerch Bridge, which connects occupied Crimea and Russia, and the Port of Novorossiysk in Russia.Following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine lost almost its entire naval fleet. Its only remaining frigate, the Hetman Sahaidachny, was scuttled just a few days after the full-scale invasion in February 2022.Image source, MAX DELANY/AFPImage caption, Ukraine’s success with naval drones dates back to the 2022 attack on the flagship Admiral Makarov, which was badly damagedUkraine has nevertheless managed to resist Russia’s attempts to dominate in the Black Sea.In 2022 Ukraine sank the Russian flagship Moskva with the help of homemade Neptune missiles. They also hit a submarine and the Russian Navy’s headquarters in Sevastopol, reportedly with long-range Storm Shadow missiles. Russia has lost five of an estimated 13 amphibious landing ships in the Black Sea. Two of its four smaller patrol warships have been destroyed or damaged.It is, however, naval drones that have made Russia’s Black Sea fleet particularly vulnerable. Under relentless attacks, Moscow was forced to withdraw the core of its fleet from Crimea and move them further east, to Novorossiysk. And even there, Russian ships remain within reach of Ukrainian drones. As a result, Russian vessels stay away from the Ukrainian shore and limit their time in the open sea. They now launch Kalibr cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea much less frequently, says Dmytro Pletenchuk, the Ukrainian Navy’s spokesman. The last confirmed launch was in mid-February and “prior to that, there had been no cruise missile launches from the sea for several months”, he says.It is believed there are 10 Russian cruise missile carriers, including three submarines, remaining in the Black Sea. Almost all of them are now stationed in Novorossiysk.Related TopicsWar in UkraineRussiaDronesUkraineMore on this storyUkraine says seven killed in attack on Russian shipPublished6 days agoIs Europe doing enough to help Ukraine?Published2 days ago’We know what’s coming’: East Ukraine braces for Russian advancePublished5 days agoTop StoriesGaza medics tell BBC that Israeli troops beat and humiliated themPublished4 hours agoHaiti’s prime minister resigns as law and order collapsePublished3 hours agoMore than a fifth of adults not looking for workPublished23 minutes agoFeaturesThe Ukrainian sea drones hunting Russian warshipsHow the miners’ strike changed the role of womenKate’s photo apology and Tory donor’s Abbott remarksSchoolboy recounts daring escape from Nigerian kidnap gangWhen wind turbine blades get old what’s next?’We don’t feel the joy of Ramadan in Rafah’ Video’We don’t feel the joy of Ramadan in Rafah’All By Myself songwriter Eric Carmen dies aged 74On Russia’s Arctic border, Nato’s new members prep for warIs pressure on Kate after photo chaos unfair?Elsewhere on the BBCCrazy urban myth or legitimate punk-pop conspiracy?Comedian Joanne McNally investigatesAttributionSoundsDo you know why the Taj Mahal was built?Test your knowledge with The Seven Wonders of the World quizAttributionBitesizeAre you a descendant of royalty?Geneticist Dr. Adam Rutherford sets out to prove that we all are…AttributionSoundsFind out this foxy family’s BBC favourites…They’ve got their eyes on the MasterChef trophyAttributioniPlayerMost Read1Al Pacino explains awkward Oscars announcement2More than a fifth of adults not looking for work3Andrew Tate detained over UK arrest warrant4Boeing whistleblower found dead in US5Whole of the Moon artist Karl Wallinger dies at 666Gaza medics tell BBC that Israeli troops beat and humiliated them7Kate’s photo apology and Tory donor’s Abbott remarks8Is pressure on Kate after photo chaos unfair?9Haiti’s PM resigns as law and order collapses10Tory donor accused of racist Diane Abbott remarks

[ad_1] Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR, does not disclose the cost of its drones. However, Thirteenth clams that the Russian missile boat Ivanovets, which was destroyed by Group-13 last month,…