More than 100 killed while seeking aid in Gaza, overall death toll
passes 30,000
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[March 01, 2024]
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) -Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces on Thursday
shot dead more than 100 Palestinians as they waited for an aid delivery,
but Israel blamed the deaths on crowds that surrounded aid trucks,
saying victims had been trampled or run over.
At least 112 people were killed and more than 280 wounded in the
incident near Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said.
The loss of civilian lives was the biggest in weeks. Hamas said the
incident could jeopardise talks in Qatar aimed at securing a ceasefire
and the release of Israeli hostages it is holding. When asked if he
thought it would complicate the talks, U.S. President Joe Biden said: "I
know it will."
Medics in Gaza said they could not cope with the flood of serious
injuries, which came as the death toll in nearly five months of war
passed 30,000, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Israel disputed the account provided by officials in Hamas-run Gaza,
which has been bombarded by Israeli forces for months since the
Palestinian militant group's deadly rampage in southern Israel on Oct.
7.
The Israeli military said the trucks were operated by private
contractors as part of an aid operation that it had been overseeing for
the past four nights.
One Israeli official said there had been two incidents, hundreds of
meters apart. In the first, dozens were killed or injured as they tried
to take aid from the trucks and were trampled or run over.
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He said there was a second, subsequent incident as the trucks moved off.
Some people in the crowd approached troops who felt under threat and
opened fire, killing an unknown number in a "limited response", he said.
He dismissed the casualty toll given by Gaza authorities but gave no
figure himself.
In a later briefing, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel
Hagari also said dozens had been trampled to death or injured in a fight
to take supplies off the trucks.
He said tanks escorting the trucks had subsequently fired warning shots
to disperse the crowd and backed away when events began to get out of
hand. "No IDF strike was conducted towards the aid convoy," he said.
"The IDF was there conducting a humanitarian operation to secure the
humanitarian corridor and allow the aid convoy to reach its designated
distribution point."
The U.S. State Department said it was urgently seeking information on
the incident as did the French foreign ministry.
WHITE HOUSE SAYS AID INCIDENT IS 'ALARMING' AND 'TRAGIC'
Hamas issued a statement rejecting the Israeli account.
It said the Health Ministry had presented "undeniable" evidence of
"direct firing at citizens, including headshots aimed at immediate
killing, in addition to the testimonies of all witnesses who confirmed
being targeted with direct fire without posing any threat to the
occupying army".
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![](../images/030124PIX/news_h13.jpg)
An Israeli soldier looks out from an armoured personnel carrier
after returning from the Gaza strip, amid the ongoing conflict
between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in southern
Israel, February 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
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The White House said Biden discussed the "tragic and alarming
incident" with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, as well as ways to
secure the release of Israeli hostages and a six-week ceasefire.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said it was an "ugly massacre"
by Israel, and French foreign ministry spokesperson Christophe
Lemoine said Israel was responsible under international law for
protecting aid distribution to civilians.
One video shared on social media, whose location Reuters was able to
verify, showed trucks loaded with many dead bodies as well as
wounded people.
Another, which Reuters could not verify, showed bloodstained people
being carried in a truck, bodies wrapped in shrouds and doctors
treating injured patients on the hospital floor.
"We don't want aid like this. We don't want aid and bullets
together. There are many martyrs," a man said in one of the videos.
The Pentagon expressed alarm but declined to assign any blame.
"These are human beings that are trying to feed themselves" Air
Force Major General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, told a
news briefing. "We're all kind of looking at that and saying: 'What
happened here'?".
PALESTINIAN DEATH TOLL TOPS 30,000
The Palestinian health authorities said 30,035 Palestinians were now
confirmed killed and more than 70,000 wounded in Israel's offensive,
launched after the Oct. 7 attack in which Israel said Hamas gunmen
killed 1,200 people and abducted 253.
Much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble and most of its 2.3 million
population have been displaced from their homes at least once.
Aid deliveries to northern Gaza have been sparse and chaotic,
passing through more active military zones to an area where the U.N.
says many are starving, with videos showing desperate crowds surging
around supply trucks.
U.N. and other relief agencies have complained that Israel has
blocked or restricted their attempts to get aid in. Israel denies
putting any restrictions on humanitarian aid.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. Palestinian aid agency UNRWA,
told reporters in Jerusalem that the supply of aid into Gaza as a
whole had halved since January.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Angus McDowall, Dan Williams, Aidan
Lewis, Emily Rose; Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell, Steve
Holland, Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and John Irish; writing by Sharon
Singleton, Kevin Liffey, Alexandra Hudson and Diane Craft; Editing
by Timothy Heritage and Cynthia Osterman)
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