Early on Thursday morning, the Israeli troops opened fire in Gaza City on a desperate crowd that gathered around aid trucks and killed over a hundred Palestinians. This incident has left the world in shock as the plight of innocent Gaza citizens has deepened. This incident has widened the ongoing crisis as the US president, Joe Biden, warned it would complicate ceasefire talks. However, there were different accounts of how the victims died in the chaos that took place near Gaza City in the north of the strip.
The Israeli military said that the majority of the victims were either run over by trucks or died in a crash while attempting to flee, however, they denied firing into a large crowd of war-torn innocent starving people.
According to a spokesman, soldiers ‘only’ opened fire on a small group that moved away from the trucks and approached a checkpoint. Israel said some Palestinians began heading towards Israeli forces in a way that “endangered” them.
According to witnesses and survivors, starving crowds surrounding the relief trucks were hit by bullets. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of the al-Awda hospital, which treated 161 patients, said that the majority of them seemed to have been shot. Another witness told a news channel that lorries had run over the majority of the dead.
Furthermore, Gaza health officials said Israeli forces opened fire on an aid distribution point, resulting in at least 112 deaths and 280 injuries. One of the victims Ali Awad Ashqir said that after he went to get some food for his starving family, he had to wait two hours for the trucks to come.
“The occupation army opened fire with artillery shells and guns as soon as they arrived,” he claimed.
The incident led to an emergency session by the UN Security Council, where the White House demanded that the deaths be “thoroughly investigated”. However, Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s ambassador to the UN, rightfully said that Palestinians are paying the price of paralysis at the UNSC.
Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
As a result of this attack, more than 30,000 people have died. Almost one in twenty of Gaza’s pre-war population is now a victim of attacks, with over 70,000 more people injured and thousands more unaccounted-for victims buried beneath the debris of crumbling buildings.
More than 25,000 women and children have been killed by Israel since October 7, 2023.
The survivors are plagued by widespread malnutrition, which has already claimed the lives of some children, and “pockets of starvation,” which are reportedly most common in the north. There is also a severe shortages of clean water, shelter, and medical supplies.
Poor Gazans are dying in desperation while attempting to reach food aid. This highlights the severity of shortages in the northern region surrounding Gaza City. UN observers have said that there is a blockade inside a blockade, with extra Israeli restrictions, this makes the supplies entering northern Gaza even more difficult than entering the southern region.
Kamel Abu Nahel, an injured survivor, said that after two months of consuming animal feed, he went to the aid distribution point in the middle of the night in the hopes of finding food supplies.
However, after trucks arrived and a crowd gathered, Israeli soldiers opened fire. People dispersed to save their lives, but they returned as soon as the gunfire subsided. However, the soldiers started shooting again, and Abu Nahel got hit in the leg by one of the bullets before being hit by a speeding truck.
Hoping for Peace
Videos circulated on social media seemed to show medical personnel walking next to a cart filled with injured people; some injured people had to be transported to hospitals on donkey carts. The hospital corridors were packed with family members and survivors.
The majority of the casualties were the result of a crush that occurred around a few trucks in the convoy after it had initially passed the Israeli military checkpoint into northern Gaza.
Subsequently, he claimed, the mobs pursuing the last truck in the convoy turned and headed back in the direction of the checkpoint, causing the soldiers to open fire in self-defence, followed by warning shots. It is not clear who had provided the food trucks.
About 300,000 people are estimated to be living in northern Gaza even after Israel ordered all civilians to evacuate several months ago. Some were unable to travel, others felt that they would rather take their chances at home, and still others feared they would not find a place to stay in the south’s packed shelters.
The life of ordinary Gazans is becoming miserable day by day, with no support and refuge from the outside.,they are trapped and in control under Israel who is raining hell. The pain of starving Gazans who were shot at and killed indiscriminately is immense. They are left at the mercy of their perpetrators, only time will tell if any Gazan will survive to see peace.