Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians waiting for desperately needed food aid in northern Gaza on Thursday, killing over 100 Palestinians and wounding hundreds of others in what Palestinian officials have called a “massacre.”
According to the Gaza health ministry, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killed at least 104 people and injured at least 750 others as they were congregating in Nabulsi Square near Gaza City, hoping to access flour that was expected to come through in aid trucks. Troops shot at the crowd with tanks and drones, and ran tanks over injured and dead people as they fired, according to Al Jazeera.
“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,” one witness told Al Jazeera. People have reportedly had to carry the injured in wagons in order to bring them to medical facilities, with ambulances being blocked from accessing the area.
“I have been waiting since yesterday. At about 4:30 this morning, trucks started to come through. Once we approached the aid trucks, the Israeli tanks and warplanes started firing at us, as if it was a trap,” one Palestinian told Quds News Network. “To the Arab states I say, if you want to have us killed, why are you sending relief aid? If this continues, we do not want any aid delivered at all. Every convoy coming means another massacre.”
Israeli officials have said that the massacre was necessary because the troops felt threatened by the crowd of hungry people hoping for flour; officials have also tried to blame Palestinians for the violence, saying that they were overcrowding the food trucks amid one of the worst famines ever seen by hunger experts.
Humanitarian aid groups have said that the incident is yet another example of a war crime by Israeli forces. “Israel deliberately targeting civilians after starving them is a gross violation of international humanitarian laws and our humanity,” said Oxfam International.
The direct assault on people trying to access food comes as northern Gaza has seen a major decrease in aid distribution in recent weeks in particular, with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) saying this week that no aid has reached the north for over a month due to Israel’s blockade. The amount of aid entering Gaza in general has decreased by 50 percent this month, UNRWA’s commissioner-general said on Thursday, after the International Court of Justice specifically directed Israel to increase aid shipments last month.
Israel’s starvation of Gaza is having horrific consequences. The Gaza Health Ministry reported Wednesday that six children had died of malnutrition and dehydration at hospitals in northern Gaza, with three more children being reported dead from malnutrition early Thursday morning by the director of a hospital in northern Gaza. This means that at least nine children died from malnutrition in one day just at medical facilities in the north.
Adults have reported going hungry in order to ensure that children are fed — and yet Israeli officials have created a hunger crisis so dire that children as young as two months are now dying of malnutrition in Gaza.
The official death toll has surpassed 30,000, including at least 12,300 children, with over 8,000 people missing under the rubble. Humanitarian aid groups have warned that Israel’s starvation campaign is slated to begin killing Palestinians at an extremely rapid rate, with famine spreading across the region and threatening to take hold of every Palestinian in Gaza.
We have 3 days to raise $35,000 — we’re counting on your support!
For those who care about justice, liberation and even the very survival of our species, we must remember our power to take action.
We won’t pretend it’s the only thing you can or should do, but one small step is to pitch in to support Truthout — as one of the last remaining truly independent, nonprofit, reader-funded news platforms, your gift will help keep the facts flowing freely.