Dozens, maybe a hundred dead. In Gaza, a food aid distribution turned into a bloody scene on Thursday February 29, although the circumstances of the tragedy are not yet clear.
The health ministry in the Hamas-administered Gaza Strip described the situation as a “massacre” and reported at least 112 dead and 760 injured. Earlier, Al-Shifa Hospital emergency director Amjad Aliwa announced that 50 people were killed and more than 120 injured, “including women and children, following shooting by occupying forces towards thousands of citizens” rushing towards “aid trucks”.
The Israeli army, in a message broadcast on Telegram, for its part does not mention any shooting, but declares that Gazans had surrounded the trucks and looted the delivered supplies and wrote that "during the incident , dozens of Gazans were injured by shoving and trampling.”
« Chaos »
Witnesses told Agence France-Presse (AFP) of scenes where thousands of people rushed towards aid trucks arriving at the "Nablus roundabout" in western Gaza City . “We were on Al-Rashid Street and suddenly tanks attacked us. There were packages full of aid. People, due to the lack of food and flour, rushed to collect them. It was chaos, there were crowds of people, but the occupying forces continued to shoot at us, there were so many martyrs and victims,” said a witness refusing to reveal his identity.
Another witness, Kamel Abu Nahel, told the Associated Press that Israeli troops opened fire on the crowd as people removed boxes of flour and canned goods from trucks, causing them to scatter, with some hiding under cars. After the shooting, people returned to the trucks and the soldiers, he said, opened fire again. Kamel Abu Nahel described being shot in the leg and falling, then having his leg crushed by a truck as it sped away, he said. Alaa Abu Daiya, another witness, said Israeli troops opened fire and a tank fired a shell.
Doctors arriving on the scene found “dozens or hundreds” of people lying on the ground, according to Fares Afana, head of the ambulance service at Kamal Edwan Hospital. According to him, there were not enough ambulances to collect all the dead and injured and that some were transported to hospitals in carts pulled by donkeys.
Deaths in “horrific circumstances”, according to the UN
Asked Thursday about the dozens of deaths in Gaza, US President Joe Biden replied: “We are checking that right now. There are two conflicting versions of what happened. I don’t have an answer yet.” “We have been in contact with the Israeli government since early this morning and understand that an investigation is underway,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller later told reporters. We will monitor this investigation closely and press for answers. »
Mr. Biden, who said this week that he hoped for a ceasefire in Gaza by Monday, also returned to his assertion, declaring that this pause in hostilities would “probably not occur by” that date. .
The UN Security Council has scheduled an emergency closed-door meeting for Thursday evening. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the events. “We don’t know exactly what happened. But whether these people were killed by Israeli fire, whether they were crushed by crowds, or run over by trucks, these are acts of violence, in a way, linked to this conflict,” Stéphane said. Dujarric, describing deaths that occurred under “horrific circumstances.”
“Life is leaving Gaza at a terrifying speed,” the UN humanitarian chief said earlier. “I am outraged by reports that hundreds of people were killed and injured during a humanitarian aid transfer operation west of Gaza City today [Thursday],” wrote Martin Griffiths on the social network
2.2 million people at risk of starvation
The United Nations (UN) estimates that 2.2 million people, the vast majority of Gaza's population, are at risk of starvation, particularly in the north, where destruction, fighting and looting make almost impossible to deliver humanitarian aid.
According to the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), just over 2,300 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip in February, a drop of around 50% from January. and a daily average of some 82 trucks per day. According to the UN, an average of about 500 trucks entered the Gaza Strip daily before the war began on October 7, when the needs of the local population were lower.
Palestinians in Gaza have told AFP in recent days that they are forced to eat leaves or fodder for livestock, or even slaughter draft animals for food. The head of the UN humanitarian aid coordination office for the Palestinian territories, Andrea De Dominico, recently told AFP that on several occasions when food convoys arrived in the north from Gaza, “thousands of people had blocked trucks to unload them at the risk of being shot.”
