The Canadian man killed along with six other aid workers in the Gaza Strip on Monday was a military veteran from Quebec who left behind his partner and one-year-old son.
Jacob Flickinger, 33, joined the aid organization World Central Kitchen last fall at the urging of his best friend Jonathan Duguay. Flickinger had been supporting the group in Gaza since early March.
“Jacob was a great guy,” Duguay said in an interview. The two met while serving together in Afghanistan in 2010, he added.
“He was always cooperative and always had a smile on his face.”
Duguay himself joined World Central Kitchen in September to help provide food relief to Morocco after the devastating earthquake near Marrakech. In November he persuaded Mr. Flickinger to join.
Their first aid mission was in Mexico, where they provided food during Hurricane Otis, which hit the Acapulco area as a Category 5 storm.
“We were diagnosed with PTSD after Afghanistan,” Duguay said. “This (aid operation) changed my life, and it changed our lives. We used our military skills to bring solutions to chaos.”
They traveled to the Middle East in early March as World Central Kitchen was planning a major expansion, including an ambitious plan to deliver first aid to Gaza by sea for the first time in more than 20 years.
With Israel imposing strict rules on the arrival of aid by truck, World Central Kitchen planned to build an improvised pier on Gaza’s northern coast. They used the rubble of destroyed buildings to build a small pier from which a small crane could lower pallets of food from boats onto waiting trucks.
The first shipment, carrying about 200 tons of food, arrived on March 15 with canned vegetables and protein, and bags of rice and pulses. The second person left Cyprus on Saturday with twice as much aid. Duguay was on the Cypriot side. Flickinger was part of the Gaza relief team.
They talked on the phone and texted multiple times a day. The last phone conversation on March 31st was a fairly standard conversation discussing shipping.
Flickinger did not appear scared or anxious, Duguay said. “He just wanted to help people.”
At 3 a.m. on April 2, Duguay woke up to the sound of his phone ringing. It was a call from another aid worker from Gaza, telling him that seven of his colleagues had been killed in an “incident” at a warehouse in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
“I knew Jacob was there,” Duguay said.
The convoy had just delivered food to a warehouse and was driving away when the Israeli airstrike struck. The Israeli government has characterized the airstrike as a tragic mistake.
Duguay said his team felt safe because the Israel Defense Forces had been informed of the plan. Israel approved the construction of the pier and provided security, according to World Central Kitchen.
“We had an agreement with the IDF,” Duguay said. “There was a special route. They knew where we were.”
It was Mr Duguay who called Mr Flickinger’s partner Sandy to break the tragic news. Sandy was at home in Costa Rica with the couple’s baby, whose name her family has chosen to withhold.
Flickinger and Sandy met about five years ago on a cold water plunge in Quebec. Flickinger is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States, and his father is American and lives in Miami. But Duguay said Flickinger grew up in St. Georges, Que., about 100 kilometers south of Quebec City.
“He fell in love right away,” Duguay said.
Mr Duguay was due to leave Cyprus on April 4, and Mr Flickinger was due to leave Cyprus shortly thereafter. Instead, Duguay will fly to Montreal on Tuesday and then head to Costa Rica to join Sandy and her father.
The Canadian Armed Forces said Wednesday that Flickinger served from 2008 to 2019. He joined the Le de la Chaudière regiment as a reserve infantryman and was sent to Afghanistan as a rifleman.
He joined the regular army in 2012 as an infantryman in Quebec’s prestigious Royal 22e Regiment, known as the Vin Doux. He was a Master Corporal when he retired in 2019.
Flickinger’s father, John, said in a Facebook post that his son’s death was a “heartbreaking tragedy.”
“My son Jacob was killed on Monday while delivering food aid to starving families in Gaza,” John Flickinger wrote. “He died doing what he loved and serving others through his work at World Central Kitchen.”
A Go Fund Me page has been set up to raise money for funeral and trust funds for Mr Flickinger’s son. By Wednesday evening, nearly $30,000 had already been raised.
Monday’s airstrike also killed Lalzaumi (Zomi) Francome, 43, from Australia. She shared the video less than a week before her death while working at a warehouse near the scene where her convoy was attacked.
Polish Damian Sobol, 35, began volunteering with aid organizations when his hometown of Przemysl became a haven for refugees fleeing Russia’s bombing of Ukraine.
Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, 25, a Palestinian, worked as a driver for a charity organization.
Three British military veterans also died, including John Chapman, 57, James Henderson, 33, and James Kirby, 47, all of whom were ensuring the safety of their team. .
Duguay said he also knows both Francom and Sobol.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said their deaths were due to negligence and “what happens in war.”
Canada wants further clarification. So are Poland, the UK, Australia and the US.
“The world needs very clear answers as to why this happened,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, who is in Belgium to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) foreign ministers’ meeting, said she spoke with Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz on Tuesday night.
“We are asking for a thorough investigation,” she said.
Katz took to social media to express his condolences to the families of the victims and their respective countries.
He said: “This incident will be investigated by the competent authorities to ensure that the necessary conclusions are drawn to guarantee the safety and security of aid workers in the future.”
In an essay published in the New York Times on Wednesday, World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres implored Israel to begin the “long journey to peace.”
“We know Israelis. Deep down, Israelis know that food is not a weapon of war,” said Andrés, a celebrity chef from Spain.
“Israel is better than the way this war is being waged. It’s better than blocking the delivery of food and medicine to civilians. It’s better than killing aid workers who were working with the Israel Defense Forces. It’s better.”
Andres said the deaths of his seven colleagues were a “direct result” of Israeli policies that “squeezed humanitarian aid to a hopeless level.”
Duguay said he would help the family with funeral plans, but insisted the tragedy would not prevent him from returning to work at World Central Kitchen. That’s not what Jacob wanted, he said.
“We make a difference for people,” Duguay said. “We need to keep feeding the people. That’s my main mission. That was Jacob’s main mission. He was a comrade. We were comrades. When he’s gone… I’ll miss you.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 3, 2024.
Mia Rabson, Canadian Press
