A Canadian man killed on April 1 along with six other aid workers in the Gaza Strip was a military veteran from Quebec whose death leaves behind a partner and a one-year-old son.
Jacob Flickinger, 33, joined the World Central Kitchen aid organization last fall at the urging of his good friend Jonathan Duguay. Mr. Flickinger had been helping the group in Gaza since early March.
“Jacob was a fantastic guy,” Mr. Duguay said in an interview. The two met in 2010 when they were serving together in Afghanistan, he added.
“He was always supportive, always smiling.”
Mr. Duguay himself joined World Central Kitchen in September, helping with food aid in Morocco following the devastating earthquake near Marrakesh. In November he convinced Mr. Flickinger to come on board.
Their first aid mission was in Mexico, providing food after Hurricane Otis slammed into the Acapulco area as a category five storm.
“We were both diagnosed with PTSD after Afghanistan,” Mr. Duguay said. “This (aid work) changed my life, changed our lives. We used our military skills to bring solutions in chaos.”
They travelled to the Middle East in early March, as World Central Kitchen was planning major expansions—including ambitious plans to deliver the first aid to Gaza by sea in more than two decades.
With Israel enforcing strict rules on aid coming in by truck, World Central Kitchen devised a plan to build a makeshift jetty on the northern Gaza coast. They used the rubble of destroyed buildings to build up a small pier, from which pallets of food could be unloaded by a small crane from boats onto waiting trucks.
The first shipment, with about 200 tonnes of food, was sent across on March 15, carrying cans of vegetables and proteins, bags of rice and legumes. The second left Cyprus on March 30 with twice as much aid. Mr. Duguay was on the Cyprus side; Mr. Flickinger was part of the Gaza relief team.
They spoke multiple times a day by phone or by text. Their last phone conversation, on March 31, was just about normal things, discussing the shipment.
Mr. Flickinger wasn’t scared or apprehensive, said Mr. Duguay. “He just wanted to help people.”
At 3 a.m. on April 2, Mr. Duguay was awakened by his phone ringing. It was another aid worker from Gaza calling to say an “incident” at the warehouse in Deir al-balah in central Gaza had killed seven of their colleagues.
“I knew Jacob was there,” Mr. Duguay said.
The convoy had just delivered food to the warehouse and was driving away when the Israeli airstrikes hit—an attack the Israeli government has characterized as a tragic mistake.
Mr. Duguay said the teams felt safe because the Israel Defence Force was told of the plan. Israel had approved and provided security for the construction of the jetty, World Central Kitchen said.
“We had an agreement with the IDF,” said Mr. Duguay. “There was a special route. They knew where we were.”
It was Mr. Duguay who delivered the tragic news by phone to Sandy, Mr. Flickinger’s partner, who was at home in Costa Rica with the couple’s baby, whose name the family has chosen to withhold.
Mr. Flickinger and Sandy met almost five years ago at a cold water plunge in Quebec. Mr. Flickinger is a dual Canadian and American citizen—his father is American and lives in Miami. But Mr. Duguay said Mr. Flickinger grew up in Saint-Georges, Que., about 100 kilometres south of Quebec City.
“He fell in love immediately,” said Mr. Duguay.
Mr. Duguay was due to leave Cyprus on April 4 and Mr. Flickinger was scheduled to leave not long after. Instead, Mr. Duguay flew to Montreal on April 2 before he heads to Costa Rica to join Sandy and her father.
The Canadian Armed Forces said on April 3 that Mr. Flickinger served from 2008 until 2019. He joined as a reserve infantry member with Le Regiment de la Chaudière and was deployed to Afghanistan as a rifleman.
He joined the regular force as infantry with Quebec’s storied Royal 22e Regiment, known as the Van Doos, in 2012. He was a master corporal when he retired from the army in 2019.
Mr. Flickinger’s father, John, said in a Facebook post that his son’s death is a “heartbreaking tragedy.”
“My son, Jacob, was killed Monday delivering food aid to starving families in Gaza,” John Flickinger wrote. “He died doing what he loved and serving others through his work with the World Central Kitchen.”
A Go Fund Me page has been started to raise funds for a funeral and a trust fund for Flickinger’s son. Nearly $30,000 had already been raised by April 3 evening.
Also killed in Monday’s airstrike were Lalzawmi (Zomi) Frankcom, 43, from Australia, who shared a video less than a week before she died working at the warehouse near where the convoy was hit.
Polish national Damian Sobol, 35, began volunteering for aid groups when his hometown of Przemysl became a haven for refugees fleeing Russia’s bombing in Ukraine.
Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, 25, was working for the charity as a driver.
There were also three British military veterans killed, all providing security to to the team, including John Chapman, 57, James Henderson, 33, and James Kirby, 47.
Mr. Duguay said he knew both Ms. Frankcom and Mr. Sobol as well.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called their deaths inadvertent—something that “happens in war,” he said.
Canada is demanding more of an explanation. So are Poland, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States.
“The world needs very clear answers as to how this happened,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on April 3.
