Australian aid worker Tess Ingram is shot at while trying to deliver fuel and water to Gaza’s children’s hospital

An Australian aid worker says she is ‘really lucky’ to have survived after shots were fired at her vehicle near a checkpoint to enter northern Gaza.

Tess Ingram, who once worked as a journalist for the Australian Financial Review’s Perth bureau and WAToday, now works for the United Nations Children’s Fund.

She told Al Jazeera that she was in a convoy of UNICEF vehicles and other aid vehicles on a coordinated mission to deliver fuel and water wells when shots were fired while they were waiting at the holding point near the checkpoint.

“We were waiting there when gunfire broke out nearby,” she said.

Shots hit the vehicle, but the UNICEF team was not injured.

The shot came from the checkpoint towards civilians who then ran away from the checkpoint and the shot hit us.

‘We were really lucky. We had some colleagues outside the car checking a mechanical problem with the feeding truck when the fire broke out and they had to run back to our armored vehicle. Fortunately, they were safe.

Australian Lalzawmi ‘Zomi’ Frankom 43, was among those who died tragically earlier this month

‘But three bullets hit the car that I was sitting in, right on my passenger door, the window and also the bonnet of the car.

‘This is just another example of how precarious it is for humanitarian aid workers and how missions like these are made impossible.’

Ingram said the group had raised the issue with the relevant Israeli authorities.

“Safety is not guaranteed, even when we take all the necessary steps,” she said.

One of the planned stops was to a hospital where children were dying of malnutrition, she said.

The shooting meant the group could not deliver the supplies, but Ms Ingram said they would try again.

Seven World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed earlier this month when their convoy left their warehouse in Deir al-Balah after unloading more than 100 tons of food aid brought to Gaza by sea.

Australian Lalzawmi ‘Zomi’ Frankom 43, was among those who tragically died after multiple drone strikes hit their convoy of vehicles in the war zone – after communicating to Israel that they were working in the area.

Britons John Chapman, 57, James Henderson, 33, and James Kirby, 47, were killed, as were Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, 25, American Jacob Flickinger, 33, and Pole Damian Sobol, 35.