Cindy McCain 'shocked' and 'heartbroken' over killing of food aid workers in Gaza

World Food Programme head Cindy McCain expressed outrage over the safety of aid workers and their lack of access to people in need as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues.

McCain said Tuesday she was "shocked" and "heartbroken" over seven World Central Kitchen workers killed in an Israeli airstrike Monday. World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit established by celebrity chef José Andrés, is among the largest providers of desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza.

"This attack on our humanitarian community is unacceptable," McCain wrote on the social media site X. "The safety of aid workers is paramount, as is the safety of those who come to receive aid."

More aid workers have been killed in occupied Palestinian territories in the past six months than in any other year of any conflict in the past 20 years, according to the Aid Worker Security Database. This year alone, 35 aid workers have been killed in Gaza, adding to a death toll of nearly 200 aid workers since October.

Nearly half the population in Gaza — more than 1 million people — have completely exhausted their food supplies and are grappling with catastrophic hunger, according to the World Food Programme.

McCain emphasized the devastation and "imminent" famine in northern Gaza on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on March 31, saying that the World Food Programme needs to have "full, unfettered access" to communities in crisis.

"We need any way to be able to get food in, in any way we can, but they can't take it to scale," McCain said. "We really need access to the road, and we need to be able to get up to the north all the way without being caught at checkpoints and turned around."

The World Food Programme reported that it would need at least 300 trucks to go into Gaza every day to sustain basic food requirements. It's getting in far fewer, McCain told CBS News. One successful recent convoy involved 18 trucks, according to the World Food Programme.

Carl Skau, the World Food Programme's deputy executive director and chief operating officer, said transporting food in and out of Gaza is "like trying to navigate a maze."

"The complicated border controls, combined with the high tensions and desperation inside Gaza, make it nearly impossible for food supplies to reach people in need, particularly in the north," Skau said March 18 in a prepared statement.

McCain became the head of the World Food Programme last year, after serving as the Biden administration's ambassador to the United Nations on food issues. The World Food Programme is based in Rome.

McCain said the famine and war in Gaza "is like none other that we've seen before," The Arizona Republic reported in January.

"The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying," McCain said in the World Food Programme's March 18 statement. "There is a very small window left to prevent an outright famine and to do that we need immediate and full access to the north. If we wait until famine has been declared, it’s too late. Thousands more will be dead."

On Face the Nation, McCain said it is up to political and diplomatic groups around the world to convince Israel to open its war zone to humanitarian assistance.

"This is a man-made crisis, and we need a diplomatic solution to it," McCain told CBS News. "We need it right now."

USA TODAY reporters John Bacon and Jorge L. Ortiz contributed.

Reach the reporter at alexis.waiss@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Cindy McCain 'heartbroken' over killing of food aid workers in Gaza