At Least 20 Killed in Attack While Waiting for Aid, Gazan Officials Say
Here’s what we know:
The Gaza health ministry accused Israel of firing at hungry people in a “targeted attack.” The Israeli military blamed Palestinian gunmen for the bloodshed.
Israeli and Gazan officials offer diverging accounts of deadly chaos around another aid convoy.
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Israeli and Gazan officials offer diverging accounts of deadly chaos around another aid convoy.
Another convoy bringing aid to hunger-stricken northern Gaza resulted in disaster late Thursday when Palestinians were killed and wounded in an attack surrounding the trucks, according to Gazan health officials and the Israeli military, which offered divergent accounts of the bloodshed.
The Gazan Health Ministry said that at least 20 people had been killed and more than 100 injured, and accused Israeli forces of carrying out a “targeted” attack against “a gathering of civilians waiting for humanitarian aid” near the Kuwait traffic circle in Gaza City.
The Israeli military denied the allegation in a statement on Friday, blaming Palestinian gunmen and saying that an “intensive preliminary review” had determined “that no tank fire, airstrike or gunfire was carried out toward the Gazan civilians at the aid convoy.”
It was not immediately possible to verify either the Israeli or Gazan Health Ministry’s accounts.
Israel has bombarded Gaza since Hamas launched an attack from the territory on southern Israel on Oct. 7. Food aid has been slow to enter the enclave amid disagreements over inspection protocols and increased lawlessness.
As severe hunger has spread in Gaza and people have grown increasingly desperate, large crowds have been gathering in anticipation of aid convoys. Those gatherings have occasionally turned deadly.
The Israeli statement said that its forces had facilitated the passage of 31 trucks bringing food and supplies to a “humanitarian corridor” in northern Gaza. About an hour before the convoy arrived, while civilians were waiting for the trucks, “armed Palestinians opened fire,” the Israeli military said.
“As aid trucks were entering, the Palestinian gunmen continued to shoot as the crowd of Gazans began looting the trucks,” the military statement went on. “Additionally, a number of Gazan civilians were run over by the trucks.”
Videos posted to social media, which could not be immediately verified, show bodies lying on the ground in the aftermath. The cause of the deaths was not immediately clear.
The Gazan Health Ministry said that some wounded people had been taken to hospitals, but there was little information about their conditions. “Medical teams are unable to deal with the extent and type of injuries that are arriving at hospitals in northern Gaza due to the poor medical and human resources,” the ministry said.
Hamas, in a statement, accused Israeli forces of carrying out a “new massacre.”
On Feb. 29, hundreds of people were killed or injured amid a stampede and Israeli gunfire when a convoy of trucks tried to deliver aid in Gaza City. That convoy was one of the first organized by Israel as it sought to demonstrate that it was doing more to bring aid into northern Gaza.
Israel’s involvement in the convoy that arrived in Gaza City on Thursday was not immediately clear. The Israeli military statement said only that its forces had “facilitated the passage” of the trucks, but did not say who had organized and operated the convoy, and that it “continues its humanitarian effort to supply food and humanitarian aid to the civilians of the Gaza Strip.”
The U.N. organization that aids Palestinians, known as UNRWA, said it was not involved in the convoy.