- Paul Adams & David Gritten
- BBC News (Jerusalem and London)
WATCH: Devastation after aid drop in Gaza leaves dozens dead
At least 112 Palestinians are said to have been killed and 760 injured while attempting to seek desperately needed aid in Gaza.
Crowds gathered in a convoy of trucks on a coastal road southwest of Gaza City, watched by Israeli tanks.
The Israeli army said the tanks fired warning shots but did not hit the trucks, adding that many of the dead were trampled or run over.
Hamas rejected Israel's explanation, saying it had “undeniable” evidence of “direct firing on civilians.”
The United Nations Security Council has scheduled an emergency closed-door meeting to discuss the incident, during which Algeria's Arab representative submitted a draft statement condemning the “firing” by Israeli forces.
According to the Associated Press, 14 of the council's 15 members supported the motion, but the United States blocked it, as Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, later told reporters. US Special Envoy Robert Wood said the facts of the case remained unclear.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the incident, saying: “The desperate civilians in Gaza are in urgent need of assistance, including those in the north, where the UN has been unable to reach aid for more than a week.” Stated.
US President Joe Biden earlier expressed concern that the incident would complicate efforts by mediators to broker a temporary ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, while France warned that “civilians trying to access food will He said the shooting by Israeli soldiers against people was “unjustified”.
Hamas has warned that talks in Qatar seeking to secure a new ceasefire along with the release of Israeli hostages held by Qatar could be in jeopardy.
image source, israel defense forces
Israeli military releases aerial video showing hundreds of Palestinians crowding around aid truck
Aerial footage from Israel shows hundreds of people on and around trucks, and graphic videos posted online show people being loaded into empty rescue vehicles and donkey carts. The image of a dead body is shown.
Thursday's incident occurred just after 4:45 a.m. (2:45 p.m. Japan time) at the Nabulsi roundabout on the southwestern edge of Gaza City.
A convoy of 30 trucks carrying Egyptian aid was heading north along what the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) calls a “humanitarian corridor” when it became surrounded by civilians climbing onto the trucks. .
“Some began violently suppressing and even trampling other Gazans to death and looting humanitarian supplies,” said IDF chief spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagali. “The unfortunate incident resulted in the deaths and injuries of dozens of Gazans.”
He said Israeli tanks “carefully tried to disperse the mob with several warning shots” but withdrew “when the hundreds turned into thousands and the situation got out of hand.” .
“There was no Israeli attack on the aid convoy,” he said, insisting that the Israeli military was trying to help the aid convoy reach its destination.
Palestinian witnesses told the BBC there was panic among the crowd and drivers trying to move forward. Most of the dead had been run over, the witness added.
Dozens of casualties in serious or critical condition were taken to nearby Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, but medical workers were unable to cope with the number and severity of cases.
A man who was cradling the body of his late friend Tamer Simbari in hospital told the BBC that he went to a roundabout in Nabulsi to get a bag of flour for his family. He said Israeli soldiers opened fire and “support trucks ran over the bodies.”
All or most of the injured being treated at two other hospitals, Kamal Adwan Hospital and Al Awda Hospital, had bullet or shrapnel wounds, hospital officials said.
Beit Lahia's Kamal Adwan Hospital said it had received the dead and injured from west Gaza City.
The incident came hours before the Gaza Ministry of Health announced that more than 30,000 people, including 21,000 children and women, have been killed in Gaza since the current conflict began on October 7. Approximately 7,000 people are reported missing and 70,450 injured.
The United Nations has warned that famine is imminent in the north of the region, where an estimated 300,000 people live with little food and clean water.
The Israeli military has launched a massive air and ground operation to crush Hamas after militants killed around 1,200 people and took 253 hostages in southern Israel. Hamas is banned as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United Kingdom, and other countries.
Reacting to Thursday's incident, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, a rival of Hamas based in the occupied West Bank, accused Israeli forces of a “heinous massacre.”
A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the incident and reiterated his call for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages.”
Northern Gaza has suffered widespread devastation and been largely cut off from humanitarian aid for months after becoming the focus of the first phase of Israel's ground offensive.
The World Food Program said it was forced to halt aid shipments to the region last week after its first convoy in three weeks was besieged by crowds of starving people near an Israeli checkpoint and then came under fire in Gaza City. Announced.
On Tuesday, a senior United Nations aid official said at least 576,000 people, a quarter of the population across the Gaza Strip, faced catastrophic levels of food insecurity, and one in six children under two in the north. warned that they were suffering from acute malnutrition. Waste of money.
According to the Ministry of Health, 10 children have died of dehydration and malnutrition in hospitals in northern Gaza in recent days.
