The Age | James Lemon | 04.04.2024
ACCIDENT – Mark
Zomi Frankcom, an Australian aid worker, left Rafah in southern Gaza early on Monday with six others to help unload 400 tonnes of food at a makeshift jetty. They were all dead less than 24 hours later – killed by a series of Israeli drone strikes.
The Jennifer, a 78-metre cargo ship, arrived in Gaza on April 1 after leaving Cyprus a few days earlier. Aid charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) said there was enough food on board to make more than 1 million meals, which would be unloaded at a temporary jetty built from the rubble of buildings destroyed in the conflict.
Frankcom, whose formal first name was Lalzawmi, and her team helped unload about 100 tonnes of aid and took it to a WCK warehouse in Deir al-Balah a few kilometres away. She and fellow workers – three British, one Palestinian, one Polish, and one American-Canadian – would have to come back later to finish the job.
Zomi appeared in a video a week earlier showing meals being prepared in a WCK kitchen in Deir al-Balah.
They would not survive long enough to see the tonnes of rice, pasta, flour, and canned vegetables turned into meals to fight what the International Court of Justice has described as the onset of famine.
Convoy leaves warehouse
A three-car convoy – two armoured vehicles and one “soft-skin” vehicle, all clearly marked with the WCK logo – left the warehouse on Monday night for Rafah with plans to return to unload the rest of the aid.
The team was compelled to take the al-Rashid coastal road after co-ordinating its plans with the Israeli Defence Forces. The road is an Israeli military-approved route that passes through a number of “high-risk areas” where people have gathered to receive aid and where civil unrest has resulted in violence.
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