IDF clip shows terror operatives posing as World Central Kitchen staff in central Gaza

Terror operatives in the central Gaza Strip posed as members of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) humanitarian organization earlier this week, the Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday, publishing footage of the incident.

Israel continued to carry out airstrikes across Gaza on Tuesday, as troops briefly came under mortar fire, and Palestinian media reported that Israeli special forces abducted one Gazan man to Israel from the central city of Deir al-Balah.

At the same time, Western countries and the UAE airdropped some 97 tons of food into the enclave, following some 300 trucks that entered on Monday over land, and Spain said it had evacuated dozens of sick or wounded children from the territory over the past several months.

According to the IDF, “five armed terrorists” were spotted in the central Gaza Strip earlier this week near a vehicle marked with the logo of WCK, “despite having no affiliation with the organization, while posing a threat to our forces,” were eliminated in an airstrike.

“The terrorists deliberately attached the [WCK] emblem and wore yellow vests in an attempt to disguise their activities and avoid being targeted, cynically exploiting the status and trust given to aid organizations,” the IDF said.

The military said COGAT representatives “verified the information with the WCK, which confirmed that the vehicle seen in Gaza with the organization’s emblem had no connection to its activities.”

This video, released by the IDF on August 12, 2025, shows alleged terror operatives posing as members of the WCK humanitarian aid organization in the central Gaza Strip. (Israel Defense Forces)

The fake WCK vehicle had been spotted in the Deir al-Balah area “with several armed terrorists nearby who posed a threat to forces,” the military said. A short while later, an Israeli Air Force drone struck the operatives.

Separately, an Israeli drone strike on central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah on Monday targeted several Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives, the military said.

No further details were given by the IDF on the strike. Palestinian media reported a strike in Deir al-Balah on Monday night that killed five people.

Gazan media reported Tuesday that on Monday, Israeli special forces driving a Volkswagen minibus abducted a Palestinian, said to be named Ismail Abd al-Karim Khattab from Deir al-Balah, taking him toward the Kissufim corridor area, where Israeli forces are deployed, and then into Israel.

As the Israeli forces returned, intensive strikes were carried out in Deir al-Balah, according to the reports, which were unconfirmed and lacked additional details.

Separately, troops of the 188th Armored Brigade came under mortar fire in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis and directed an Israeli Air Force drone to hit a building from which the projectiles were launched, the IDF said, publishing footage showing the latter strike.

כוחות צה”ל ממשיכים לפעול ברצועת עזה: כוחות צוות הקרב של חטיבה 188 השמידו מבנה ממנו שוגרו פצמ”רים לעבר כוחותינו

כוחות צה״ל בפיקוד הדרום ממשיכים לפעול בהכוונת אמ״ן ושב”כ נגד ארגוני הטרור ברחבי רצועת עזה.

כלי טיס של חיל האוויר תקפו אתמול במרחב דיר אל-באלח, בהכוונה מודיעינית של… pic.twitter.com/cLaPuC8NDG

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) August 12, 2025

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday that 89 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire in the past 24 hours.

Witnesses and medics said Israeli bombardments overnight killed seven people in two houses in Gaza City’s Zeitoun suburb and another four in an apartment building in the city center.

In the south of Gaza, five people, including a couple and their child, were killed by an Israeli airstrike on a house in the city of Khan Younis and four others by a strike on a tent encampment in nearby coastal Mawasi, medics said.

The IDF said it was looking into the reports of the latest bombardments and that its forces were taking precautions to mitigate civilian harm.

Hamas authorities say five more dead from malnutrition

The ministry also reported that five people, including two children, had died of starvation and malnutrition in the Strip over the previous 24 hours.

The new deaths raised the number of deaths from the same causes to 227, including 103 children, since the war started, according to the agency.

Israel said Tuesday that Hamas has been lying about Palestinian deaths from malnutrition, and that most of those verified to have died — a fraction of the number reported — had preexisting medical conditions that significantly led to their deaths.

Israel denies the allegations of widespread starvation and has said it makes efforts to allow sufficient aid into Gaza. But facing heavy international pressure, the government recently greatly increased the flow of supplies, after having barred aid altogether for 11 weeks between March and May.

Aircraft from the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Belgium, France, and Italy airdropped 97 pallets of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the IDF said, noting that each pallet contains around one ton of food.

Denmark’s foreign minister told reporters the Scandinavian nation will also send a plane to airdrop aid to Gaza soon.

Since July 26, when Israel adopted a new policy to let more aid into the Strip, over 1,000 humanitarian aid packages have been airdropped in the Gaza Strip by at least 12 countries, including Israel, according to the military. The packages the IDF airdropped were supplied by international aid groups.

But airdrops are only able to deliver a small fraction of what can enter Gaza by land. They also pose safety risks for the civilians who can be hit by the packages from above.

270 trucks enter Gaza on Monday, half what UN calls for daily

Amid the airdrops, some 300 trucks carrying humanitarian aid — about half of what the UN says must be distributed each day — entered the Gaza Strip on Monday through the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said.

Displaced Palestinians carry food parcels as they raid trucks carrying humanitarian aid in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on August 9, 2025. (AFP)

According to COGAT, over 270 trucks worth of aid were collected by the United Nations and other international organizations to be distributed.

“Additionally, tankers of UN fuel entered for the operation of essential humanitarian systems,” COGAT added.

Spain has evacuated 44 wounded or ill children from war-torn Gaza along with about 100 of their relatives over the past several months, the Spanish government said Tuesday.

Four separate evacuation missions were carried out in coordination with international organizations and allied nations, Spain’s migration ministry, which led the operations, said in a statement.

The children and their families have been relocated across Spain to receive medical treatment, it added.

Those brought to Spain will be eligible to apply for asylum.

Migration Minister Elma Saiz said the operations demonstrated that “solidarity and international cooperation save lives.”

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government has been among the most vocal critics in the European Union of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez gestures as he delivers a speech during a press conference following a Council of Ministers meeting at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid, Spain, April 22, 2025. (Javier Soriano / AFP)

The war began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

Terror groups in Gaza still hold 50 hostages, of whom twenty are believed to be alive, while twenty-eight have been confirmed dead, and the government has expressed “grave concern” about the remaining two.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 60,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 459. The toll includes two police officers and three Defense Ministry civilian contractors.