RAFAH – Diaa Mansour was in the truck directly behind when the soldiers appeared. The convoy had stopped on the Philadelphi corridor, a military road along Gaza’s southern edge, because one of the four trucks had broken down shortly after crossing into Gaza through Kerem Shalom. An Israeli soldier ordered the drivers to step down from their vehicles. Ahmad Nasser Esleem did. He raised his hands. The soldier shot him in the head.
Esleem was 30, from Deir al-Balah. His wife had given birth to their second child one month earlier. He had been driving for World Central Kitchen, the international food charity, on a convoy that the organisation had fully coordinated with the United Nations World Food Programme before entering Gaza.
World Central Kitchen described the killing as a field execution and called on Israel to provide a full accounting of what happened. WCK said Esleem had been doing what so many of its partners do every day in Gaza, working to get food to hungry people, and that humanitarian aid deliveries should never be a target. The Association of Transport Companies, which represents the truckers operating through Kerem Shalom, announced it would hold an emergency meeting to consider suspending all operations through the crossing. Kerem Shalom is the only border point currently receiving aid into Gaza.
The convoy had been authorised through the established coordination system. Esleem wore an orange safety vest and carried the permits and security clearances required by Israeli procedures. The convoy entered through Kerem Shalom, the sole crossing Israel has designated for humanitarian shipments under the ceasefire agreement reached in October 2025.
Mansour told The Guardian that one soldier began speaking to Esleem when the drivers stepped down. The language barrier was immediate: Esleem spoke Arabic, and the soldiers did not appear to understand him. He kept his hands raised. Three separate accounts of the incident, gathered by the newspaper, produced the same sequence. No warning shot was fired. No further instruction was given. He was shot in the head.
The IDF confirmed that its forces opened fire and offered a different account. A military spokesperson said the convoy had stopped contrary to established procedures and that one of the drivers ran toward the troops, prompting soldiers to initiate the suspect apprehension protocol after perceiving an immediate threat. The statement does not address the position of Esleem’s hands at the moment of the shooting, nor the language barrier described by the witnesses.
WCK has faced this before. In April 2024, an Israeli airstrike killed seven of its workers in a coordinated convoy in Gaza, including foreign nationals. Israel issued a rare public apology, conducted internal reviews, and changed personnel. The charity resumed operations. Esleem’s killing marks the second time a member of WCK’s operational network has been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. Whether the international response this time produces more than condemnation and a promise of review has not yet been established.
The killing comes against a backdrop of sustained pressure on Gaza’s aid infrastructure. More than 588 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to UN figures, with killings continuing through the ceasefire period. The UN said last week that just over 25 percent of the $4.1 billion required for humanitarian operations in occupied Palestinian territories has been received, leaving dozens of programmes operating below minimum capacity before any suspension of Kerem Shalom operations is factored in.
Kerem Shalom is not one crossing among several. Under the October 2025 ceasefire, it became the sole designated entry point for aid shipments, and the WFP has consistently described it as irreplaceable in the near term. During the first six months of the ceasefire, fewer than 38 percent of the agreed aid quota actually entered Gaza through the crossing. A suspension would reduce that number to zero.
Since the ceasefire began, at least 1,084 Palestinians have been killed and 3,491 wounded, according to figures reported by TRT World. The Gaza Health Ministry puts the total death toll since October 2023 at 73,118. The pattern has been consistent: a killing occurs, witnesses describe what happened, the IDF issues an alternative account, an investigation is announced, and nothing consequential follows. Britain’s incoming prime minister acknowledged last week that his country was too slow to respond to Gaza deaths during earlier phases of the war. No Western government issued a formal statement on Esleem’s killing at the time of publication.
Ahmad Nasser Esleem was buried in Deir al-Balah. What the Association of Transport Companies ultimately decides about Kerem Shalom, and whether WCK’s demand for a full accounting produces anything different from what the April 2024 killings produced, has not been determined. His wife and their two children, one of them a month old, remain in Gaza.
