Israel Used US Bomb in North Gaza Massacre That Killed 93, Aid Group Says

Israeli forces used a U.S.-provided bomb in a massacre in north Gaza that killed at least 93 Palestinians, including 20 children, on Tuesday, an aid group has found.

Citing preliminary reports, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor says there is evidence of Israel using an MK-84 in the strike — a 2,000-pound bomb made to cause damage in a huge radius.

On Tuesday morning, an Israeli aircraft bombed a residential building in Beit Lahiya that was sheltering 200 displaced Palestinians. Dozens were wounded, and many were unable to get care, as Israel has sieged and all but shut down the hospitals in north Gaza; this week, Israeli forces arrested all but three doctors at Kamal Adwan Hospital, which was the last fully operational medical facility in the region.

Combined with the fact that first responders have been forced to end their services due to Israeli violence, this means that the wounded are often left to die in the streets after a strike, medical workers have said. “Whoever is injured, just lies there on the ground and whoever is killed can’t be transported, except by mule-drawn cart,” Eid Sabbah, a doctor at Kamal Adwan, told Reuters.

There are still dozens of people trapped under debris as a result of the strike, Euro-Med Monitor noted, but Israeli forces are prohibiting humanitarian workers from entering the region as part of Israel’s total aid blockade. As a result, an unknown number of people, including children, are buried alive under the rubble, waiting for a rescue that may never come.

Euro-Med Monitor said that German weapons, like mines and its Matador rocket launcher, have been used regularly in the Israeli military’s campaign in north Gaza and beyond. Germany and the U.S. have been the two largest foreign benefactors in Israel’s genocide.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the U.S. is “deeply concerned” by the attack, which he said is “horrifying.” The U.S. has sent at least 14,000 MK-84s to Israel since the genocide began last October.

“One of the most repulsive examples of racism and moral and political corruption on a worldwide scale is the disregard displaced by the international community and international justice systems over the course of the past year,” Euro-Med Monitor said in a statement. “The death toll has climbed from dozens to hundreds and then thousands without a single serious position being issued, and with many governments — particularly powerful Western allies of Israel — normalising the daily killings and massacres.”

The Israeli military’s nearly month-long siege of north Gaza has been the deadliest and most destructive phase of the genocide yet, Palestinians say.

Since the beginning of this month, no aid, “not even a drop of water” has entered north Gaza, as journalist Hossam Shabat reported this week. Meanwhile, Israeli forces are conducting a deadly ground invasion of the region, systematically striking and emptying shelters and forcing Palestinians to flee south — if they aren’t killed or detained by Israeli forces first.

Jabalia and Beit Lahiya have been especially targeted, reports find. Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reported on Wednesday that Israel is currently destroying everything in Beit Lahiya: “shelters, schools, hospitals, houses,” Khoudary said.

“Residents in Beit Lahiya had opened their homes to all civilians fleeing from Jabalia, where the Israeli army had been focusing its military operations at the start of the siege three weeks ago. So now Israel forces are concentrating all their attack on Beit Lahiya,” Khoudary reported.

This week, the UN’s top humanitarian official, Joyce Msuya, warned that the siege may kill all Palestinians left in north Gaza.

“What Israeli forces are doing in besieged North Gaza cannot be allowed to continue,” Msuya said. “The entire population of North Gaza is at risk of dying. Such blatant disregard for basic humanity and for the laws of war must stop.”