The death toll for Palestinians killed by Israeli forces while waiting for food aid in Gaza has risen to 104, the Gaza Health Ministry said, adding that at least 760 Palestinians were injured.
“During the entry of aid trucks into northern Gaza, residents surrounded the trucks,” whose transit Israeli soldiers were ensuring, and “looted the supplies.” The military spokesman said this about the incident in which, according to health sources cited by AFP, there were at least 50 dead and over 100 injured (70 dead and 250 injured according to Hamas). “In the incident – says the army – dozens of people were trampled in the crowd.” Military sources report that the soldiers “fired at those who had surrounded the trucks” and that the crowd “crowded in such a way as to pose a threat to the troops”.
In the absence of an official count by the Gaza Ministry of Health, with these victims the deaths in the Strip would exceed 30,000, given that yesterday 29,954 were confirmed since the start of the war on 7 October. Furthermore, it is estimated that more than 7,000 bodies remain under the rubble. “We hold the US administration, the international community, the occupation and international organizations responsible for the killing of starving civilians at the hands of the occupation,” the Gaza government added.
The group accused the “occupation” of trying to “starve” Gazans and said more than 700,000 people are suffering from famine in the northern Strip.
“The attack was premeditated and intentional, in the context of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the people of the Gaza Strip. The occupying army knew that these victims had come to this area to obtain food and aid, but killed them in cold blood” we read in the note.
For its part, Islamic Jihad – which brought the death toll to 150 – stated that “this massacre will only increase the resolve of our people against the Zionist murder machine”.
Yesterday 116 trucks of humanitarian aid entered the Strip – 92 of which through the Kerem Shalom crossing, on the border with Israel, and 24 through the Rafah crossing, which connects with the Egyptian Sinai – an insufficient quantity given the urgent needs of the Strip . According to UNRWA, around 2,300 trucks entered Gaza in February, 50% fewer than in January. Given the difficulty of introducing humanitarian aid by land, several countries – including Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, France and the United Arab Emirates – have launched parcels with food and supplies by air, a strategy that yesterday benefited the inhabitants of the north of the country enclave for the first time, even if some launches landed by mistake in Israeli territory.
According to the reconstruction made by the IDF, cited by the Times of Israel, while humanitarian aid was being delivered in the northern Gaza Strip, a fight broke out around the trucks in which the Palestinians looted the supplies.
“During the incident, dozens of Gazans were injured in the crowd,” the Israeli army added, “and when part of the crowd began to move towards the Israeli forces present in the area – tasked with coordinating the entry of the trucks – in a way that endangered the troops, they opened fire.”