Israel forces fire on Gazans rushing for food aid
Israeli forces in war-torn Gaza opened fire on Palestinians scrambling for food aid in a chaotic melee on Thursday that the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said killed more than 100 people.
The Israeli military said a “stampede” occurred when thousands of desperate Gazans surrounded a convoy of 38 aid trucks, leading to dozens of deaths and injuries, including some who were run over by the lorries.
An Israeli source acknowledged troops had opened fire on the crowd, believing it “posed a threat”.
The Hamas-run health ministry condemned what it called a “massacre” in Gaza City in which 112 people were killed and more than 750 others wounded.
The incident adds to a Palestinian death toll from the war that the ministry said had topped 30,000, and dampens hopes a truce deal between Israel and Hamas militants could be just days away.
There were conflicting reports on what exactly unfolded in the hours before dawn.
A witness in Gaza City, declining to be named for safety reasons, said the violence began when thousands of people rushed towards aid trucks at the city’s western Nabulsi roundabout, with soldiers firing at the crowd “as people came too close” to tanks.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military had fired “a few warning shots” to try to disperse a crowd that had “ambushed” the aid trucks.
When the crowd got too big, he said the convoy tried to retreat and “the unfortunate incident resulted in dozens of Gazans killed and injured”.
Aerial images released by the Israeli army showed what it said were scores of people surrounding aid trucks in Gaza City.
Ali Awad Ashqir, who said he had gone to get some food for his starving family, told AFP he had been waiting for two hours when trucks began to arrive.
“The moment they arrived, the occupation army fired artillery shells and guns,” he said.
Hagari later denied Israeli forces carried out any shelling or strikes at the time.
US President Joe Biden said Washington was checking “two competing versions” of the incident, while a State Department spokesman said the United States had been in touch with Israel and was “pressing for answers” on what happened.
The incident would complicate efforts to broker a truce, Biden said, later admitting that any deal was unlikely to happen by Monday — the timeline that he had predicted earlier this week.
The US president spoke with Qatari and Egyptian leaders in separate phone calls, the White House said, saying he discussed both the ceasefire and the “tragic and alarming” aid incident.
The UN Security Council held a closed-door emergency meeting on the incident.
The US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood condemned the incident before entering the meeting, calling it a “tragic day”.
Saudi Arabia strongly condemned what it called the “targeting” of unarmed civilians, while Kuwait and the UAE also issued condemnations.
Qatar warned that Israel’s “disregard for Palestinian blood... (will) pave the way for an expanding cycle of violence”.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his “strongest condemnation”, while Spain’s foreign minister described the events as “unacceptable”.
European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell also denounced the “carnage”.
Looting of aid trucks has previously occurred in northern Gaza, where desperate residents have taken to eating animal fodder and even leaves to stave off starvation.
The chief of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that no UN agency had been involved in Thursday’s aid delivery, and called the incident “another day from hell”.