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Jos\u00e9 Andr\u00e9s, the award-winning chef and food philanthropist, is mourning<\/a> the deaths of seven aid workers from his nonprofit World Central Kitchen, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip on April 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n The airstrike killed aid workers<\/a> from Australia, Gaza, Poland, and the U.K. as well as a Canadian\/U.S dual citizen, sparking global fury<\/a> and an uncharacteristic climb-down from Israel. In the aftermath, Biden warned Israel that U.S support depends on a crackdown in efforts to protect civilians and aid workers. Israel took the rare step of admitting a \u201cserious mistake\u201d and firing two senior officers<\/a> involved following an investigation into the strike.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The convoy had \u201cunloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza\u201d on the group\u2019s sea route, the kitchen wrote in a statement<\/a>, and had fully complied with Israeli military authorities who were aware of their itinerary, route, and humanitarian mission. All of their convoys are back in Cyprus and all operations in Gaza have been paused for now, a World Central Kitchen spokesperson told Fortune.<\/em><\/p>\n It marks quite an evolution for Andr\u00e9s, who immigrated to the U.S in 1991 and settled in Washington, D.C., becoming a fixture of its fine dining scene. He set up several avant-garde<\/a> and award-winning restaurants<\/a> over the years, en route to becoming a U.S citizen<\/a> in 2013. But now he gets calls from the White House about the political situation in the Middle East and around the world.<\/p>\n Following the attack, President Joe Biden called<\/a> Andr\u00e9s and released a statement<\/a>, saying he was \u201coutraged and heartbroken\u201d by the workers\u2019 deaths, and offering his \u201cdeepest condolences.\u201d Biden has been increasingly pressuring Israel and breaking with Netanyahu of late, saying the state has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians. The killing of the aid workers was directly followed by Biden telling Netanyahu<\/a> that \u201creaching an immediate cease-fire\u201d in exchange for the estimated 100 remaining hostages still held in Gaza is \u201cessential.\u201d As of yesterday, a Hamas official said there has been no progress in Gaza cease-fire talks, Reuters reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n These extraordinary events beg the question: How did a 54-year-old Spanish-born celebrity chef with two Michelin<\/a> stars to his name become such a major player in international politics?<\/p>\n Andr\u00e9s\u2019s kitchen began delivering food aid in Gaza in March, and has facilitated humanitarian food aid<\/a> since 2010. The chef was named<\/a> one of Time<\/em>\u2018s 100 Most Influential People in 2012 and in 2018, he was recognized by the James Beard Foundation as humanitarian of the year<\/a>. Earlier this year, Andr\u00e9s\u2019s work won him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination from Democratic representatives including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Andr\u00e9s\u2019s vision for World Central Kitchen was to create a \u201cmeans for feeding the many\u201d in disaster zones, according to the group\u2019s website<\/a>, and he hasn\u2019t shied away from the \u201cresponsibility of both culinary ambassador and immigrant representing two nations.\u201d<\/p>\n A key moment was the 2010 earthquake<\/a> in Haiti, which killed over 222,500 people. Andr\u00e9s has written and talked about how he learned to prepare black beans the way many Haitians prefer<\/a>\u2014mashed and sieved into a creamy sauce\u2014and took it as a lesson in connecting with people over food. In an interview<\/a> with The View,<\/em> Andr\u00e9s said this \u201clife-changing trip\u201d laid the groundwork for what became more than a decade of philanthropic efforts. He described the moments he spent listening to Haitians and making \u201cthem happy by pureeing the beans and making the black bean sauce that goes next to the rice.\u201d<\/p>\n He spent the next seven years focused on long-term food resilience programs<\/a> in the Caribbean and Central America. His work gained the attention of former President Barack Obama, who awarded<\/a> him the National Humanities Medal for his work in Haiti in 2015.\u00a0<\/p>\n That year, Andr\u00e9s was also roped into a two-year legal battle<\/a> with the soon-to-be President Donald Trump, who sued Andr\u00e9s for $10 million over a restaurant deal that Andr\u00e9s shuttered after Trump made racist comments<\/a> about Mexicans, blaming them for America\u2019s drug and crime issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2017, Andr\u00e9s lit the gas burners again when Hurricane Harvey<\/a> hit Houston, and a month later, traveled to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Mar\u00eda \u201con the first commercial flight to San Juan\u201d after the storm, according<\/a> to the kitchen. About 3,000 people<\/a> were killed by the hurricane, and the kitchen served nearly 4 million fresh meals in the aftermath of Mar\u00eda.\u00a0<\/p>\n Andr\u00e9s was soon at the center of a political firestorm again. In 2018, about a year after the hurricane hit Puerto Rico and amid widespread reporting of the Trump administration\u2019s slow or lacking response to the disaster, former President Donald Trump rejected the official death toll<\/a>, without evidence, in a series<\/a> of posts<\/a> on Twitter (now X<\/a>). Andr\u00e9s responded by slamming Trump in his own<\/a> posts<\/a> on X, stating, \u201cyou are the face of \u2018No shame.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n With Biden, things have taken another turn. In 2022, Andr\u00e9s persuaded Biden to hold a White House conference<\/a> on hunger, nutrition, and health, the first of its kind held since 1969.\u00a0<\/p>\n In his most recent phone call with Biden, Andr\u00e9s said the \u201cU.S. must do more to tell Prime Minister Netanyahu this war needs to end now,\u201d according to the World Central Kitchen spokesperson. Biden has called the war in Gaza \u201cone of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed.\u201d Still, he has been approving weapons sales, including the transfer<\/a> of thousands of bombs to Israel on the same day the aid workers were killed, the Washington Post<\/em> reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The White House did not respond to Fortune\u2019s<\/em> request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Days after the death of his organization\u2019s aid workers, Andr\u00e9s reiterated World Central Kitchen\u2019s mission in a New York Times<\/em> op-e<\/a>d, saying it\u2019s based on the belief that \u201cfood is a universal human right,\u201d and that it\u2019s \u201cnot conditional on being good or bad, rich or poor, left or right.\u201d<\/p>\n His kitchen has been in Gaza since<\/a> March, with the intent to bring food aid to starving people<\/a> in northern Gaza via a maritime corridor from Cyprus. He kick-started the journey after Israel refused<\/a> to let the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency deliver food to the area, claiming its agency staff had taken part in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, Reuters reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n After the aid convoy was hit, World Central Kitchen on Thursday called<\/a> for an independent investigation of the strike, which occurred in a \u201cdeconflicted zone<\/a>,\u201d an area<\/a> the military cooperates on to reduce accidents, and involved multiple strikes that targeted three World Central Kitchen vehicles, all marked with the kitchen\u2019s logo. Netanyahu initially issued an apology<\/a> for the attack, stating \u201cIsrael deeply regrets the tragic incident which claimed the lives of seven humanitarian aid workers,\u201d while adding that it\u2019s the kind of thing that \u201chappens in war<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n According to an internal probe<\/a> published by the Israel Defense Forces on Friday, the strikes on the aid convoy were \u201cin serious violation of the commands and IDF Standard Operating Procedures.\u201d The mistake occurred after Israeli forces mistakenly assumed that gunmen were in the vehicles.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Andr\u00e9s isn\u2019t done calling for political action. In the New York Times <\/em>op-ed<\/a>, he called on the Israeli government to \u201copen more land routes for food and medicine today.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nBuilding political influence<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u2018Food is a universal human right\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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