Israel killed more than 200 Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday, including 40 members of a single family. The official death toll in Gaza is now over 44,000, although experts believe that is a vast undercount of the true figure. Israel’s onslaught has continued to kill medical and aid workers in recent days, including three people with World Central Kitchen, the head of the intensive care unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital, a staff member with Save the Children, as well as Mahmoud Almadhoun, who co-founded the Gaza Soup Kitchen that has fed Palestinians suffering hunger due to Israel’s blockade of vital food aid. Almadhoun was killed in an Israeli drone strike and is survived by seven children, including a newborn baby. His brother Hani Almadhoun joins Democracy Now! to discuss what he calls a targeted assassination. “My brother slowed down the ethnic cleansing of north Gaza, and that’s why he was taken out,” says Almadhoun. “This is a war against the civilians in Palestine.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to Gaza. On Saturday, Israel killed more than 200 Palestinians in Gaza, including 40 members of a single family. In recent days, Israel killed three aid workers with [World Central] Kitchen, the head of the intensive care unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital, a staff member with Save the Children, as well as Mahmoud Almadhoun, who co-founded the Gaza Soup Kitchen that’s fed Palestinians facing hunger due to Israel’s blockade of vital food aid. Almadhoun was killed in an Israeli drone strike. He’s survived by seven children, the youngest just a newborn.

We’re joined right now in Washington, D.C., by Mahmoud Almadhoun’s brother, Hani Almadhoun. He works as the director of philanthropy at UNRWA USA. He co-founded the Gaza Soup Kitchen with his brother.

Thanks so much for being with us, Hani. Our deepest condolences on the loss of your brother, following the loss of your other brother last year in Gaza. Can you tell us about your brother and what happened this weekend?

HANI ALMADHOUN: Thank you, Amy.

My brother Mahmoud was targeted and assassinated in the morning of Saturday at 9 a.m. He left the house, walked about 30 yards, and a drone was waiting for him and just launched its rocket, killing him on the spot. He was headed to Kamal Adwan Hospital, where for the past three or four weeks he’s been supporting the hospital with food, delivering food for them, delivering produce from other parts of Gaza, and, you know, even blankets. Everything he had, he gave it to the hospital when he felt the bombs were falling nearby and he could no longer cook for them.

He was targeted. When the folks who tried to rescue him, or they thought they could save his life, they tried to take into the hospital, sniper fire fired at them. So they tried again. They were shot at. So, they decided, by then, it was too late. They wrapped him in a blanket, took him home, said final goodbye and buried him in a makeshift grave.

And this is my brother, the humanitarian, the father of seven, the youngest who still does not have a name because there is no office in Gaza to give people names or birth certificates. He was debating — the last argument he had was either to name her Aline or Kawthar. And now she will grow without a dad.

He is my partner. He is my buddy. He’s my young brother, who closed every video he’s ever sent me, “I send this with greetings and appreciation to my friends in the United States of America,” despite the fact that the bombs killed our brother Majed, American bombs. Every video he would send, he would say, “For my friends in the United States of America.” And now he was assassinated, and the target was him. There was nobody else. He is a full-time civilian.

In fact, we miss him dearly, and we’re still processing this, but I worry for his seven kids. The oldest one is Omar, who was targeted four days before the killing of my brother, and he is already receiving medical attention. So, you can imagine having to break the news to a kid who’s 14 years old, telling him that his dad has been killed and now he is the family provider. It’s overwhelming, Amy.

And sadly, my brother is no longer here. We continue to pray for him and tell people, you know, we are still there at the Gaza Soup Kitchen. We’re not closing shop, not because we want to make a statement, but because we want to make sure our families have food to eat. This is hunger and famine, both in north Gaza and south of Gaza. My brother slowed down the ethnic cleansing of north Gaza, and that’s why he was taken out.

AMY GOODMAN: You........

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