“Life is leaving Gaza at a frightening rate,” UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said on Thursday, February 29, in response to Israeli soldiers firing on a starving crowd during an aid distribution. The Hamas health ministry reported at least 104 dead and 760 injured after shooting at Palestinians rushing toward trucks carrying humanitarian aid in the north of the famine-threatened area. Israeli soldiers, feeling “threatened,” fired live ammunition at Palestinians, Israeli sources told AFP. The latter rejected their responsibility for the severity of this assessment. An army official reported “a stampede in which dozens of residents were killed and injured, some run over by relief trucks.” Follow our live stream.
According to the Pentagon, more than 25,000 women and children have been killed in Gaza. More than 25,000 Palestinian women and children have been killed in Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday. The Pentagon chief gave this figure to a parliamentary committee in response to a question about the number of women and children killed in the war, which was launched in retaliation for Hamas attacks on Israeli soil.
Hamas reports more than 30,000 dead in the Palestinian enclave. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said the number of deaths in Gaza since the conflict with Israel began on October 7 was “more than 30,000.” Around 1.7 million Palestinians out of a population of 2.4 million have fled their homeland. On the Israeli side, the October 7 terrorist attack left at least 1,160 people dead, mostly civilians, according to a count by the AFP news agency based on official data.
Climbing on the border with Lebanon. Israeli attacks killed two people in the Lebanese cities of Siddiqin and Kafra on Wednesday evening. Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, has exchanged fire with the Israeli army almost daily since the war began. On Wednesday morning, the al-Qassam Brigades said it fired two volleys of rockets at two military sites in northern Israel.