jERUSALEM, Mar 1
At least 112 people were killed and around 750 others injured after the Israeli military opened fire at Gazans during the delivery of food and aid in Gaza City on Thursday. While the military alleged that they fired to control a stampede around the convoy, Palestinian eyewitnesses refuted this account.
The latest massacre has brought the number of Palestinians killed in the last four months to more than 30,000, according to health officials. The United Nations estimates that more than 80% of Gazans have been displaced in Israel’s retaliatory measures since the Oct 7 Hamas attack.
What happened last night?
Videos of the incident showed the chaos that went down on al-Rashid Street in Gaza City where people had gathered in the early hours of the morning to await aid trucks carrying flour. An Al Jazeera report, quoting eye-witnesses, said that as people congregated around the convoy, the Israeli military opened fire, following which army tanks ran over many dead and injured persons. “We went to get flour. The Israeli army shot at us. There are many martyrs on the ground and until this moment we are withdrawing them. There is no first aid,” an eye-witness told Al Jazeera.
Kamel Abu Nahel, who was injured in the melee, told the Associated Press that he, along with others, had gone to the distribution point in the middle of the night because they heard there would be a delivery of food. “We’ve been eating animal feed for two months,” he told AP.
He told the AP that people were pulling boxes of flour and canned goods off the trucks when Israeli troops opened fire, prompting people to scatter and hide under cars. Once the firing stopped, people again headed towards the trucks to collect aid, but the Israeli military opened fire again, he said. Kamel added that he fell over after he was shot in the leg, following which a truck ran over his leg as it sped off.
Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs termed the incident a cold-blooded “massacre” and called on the international community to urgently intervene to forge a cease-fire.
‘Felt endangered,’ says Israeli army The Israeli army, meanwhile, denied shooting at civilians. “This morning humanitarian aid trucks entered northern Gaza, residents surrounded the trucks and looted the supplies being delivered. As a result of the pushing, trampling and being run over by the trucks, dozens of Gazans were killed and injured,” it said in a statement on its official military, @IDF, on X.
The chief military spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told the AP that huge crowds of people had tried to grab aid from a convoy of 30 trucks that were heading to northern Gaza. He said that Israeli troops had fired warning shots into the crowd because they felt endangered, and that many Palestinians were killed in the stampede and some were run over by the trucks as the drivers tried to get away.“We didn’t open fire on those seeking aid. Contrary to the accusations, we didn’t open fire on a humanitarian aid convoy, not from the air and not from land. We secured it so it could reach northern Gaza,” he told AP.
World leaders condemn the massacre
World leaders, including France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan, condemned the massacre.
US President Joe Biden, who had said that he is hoping for a cease-fire soon, expressed concern that the bloodshed in Gaza will add to the difficulty in negotiations.
