Australian aid worker Tess Ingram is shot at as she tried to deliver fuel and water to Gaza children’s hospital
An Australian aid worker says she is “really lucky” to have survived after her vehicle was shot at near a checkpoint entering northern Gaza.
Tess Ingram, who once worked as a journalist for the Perth bureau of the Australian Financial Review and WAToday, now works for the United Nations Children’s Fund.
She told Al Jazeera that she was in a convoy of UNICEF vehicles and other emergency vehicles on a coordinated mission to deliver fuel and water sources when shots were fired as they waited at the checkpoint waiting point.
“We were sitting there waiting when gunfire broke out nearby,” she said.
Tess Ingram says she feels “really lucky” to have survived.
Shots hit the vehicle, but the UNICEF team was not injured.
“The gunfire came from the direction of the checkpoint towards civilians, who then ran away from the checkpoint, and the gunfire hit us.
‘We were really lucky. When the fire broke out, some colleagues outside the car had checked a mechanical problem with the food truck, and they had to run back to our armored vehicle. Luckily they were safe.
Australian Lalzawmi ‘Zomi’ Frankom 43 was among those tragically killed earlier this month
“But three bullets hit the car I was in right on my passenger door, the window and also the hood of the car.
“This is yet another example of how unsafe it is for humanitarian workers and how missions like this are made impossible.”
Ms Ingram said the group had raised the issue with the relevant Israeli authorities.
“Safety is not guaranteed even if we take all the required steps,” she said.
One of the planned stops was a visit to a hospital where children were dying from malnutrition, she said.
The shooting prevented the group from delivering supplies, but Ms Ingram said they would try again.
Seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed earlier this month when their convoy left the warehouse in Deir al-Balah after unloading more than 100 tons of food aid brought by sea to Gaza.
Australian Lalzawmi ‘Zomi’ Frankom 43 was among those tragically killed after multiple drone strikes hit their convoy of vehicles in the war zone – after he informed Israel they were working in the area.
Britons John Chapman, 57, James Henderson, 33, and James Kirby, 47, were killed, as were Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, 25, American Jacob Flickinger, 33, and Pole Damian Sobol, 35.