- By Paul Adams and David Gritten
- BBC News, in Jerusalem and London
February 29, 2024
Updated 19 minutes ago
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Watch: Devastation after dozens die during aid deliveries in Gaza
At least 112 Palestinians are believed to have been killed and 760 injured in an attempt to access urgently needed aid in Gaza.
On the coastal road southwest of Gaza City, crowds stormed a convoy of trucks in the presence of Israeli tanks.
The Israeli military said tanks fired warning shots but did not hit the trucks, and many of the dead were trampled or run over.
Hamas rejected Israel's account, saying there was “indisputable” evidence of “direct shooting at citizens.”
The UN Security Council called a closed emergency meeting to discuss the incident, at which Algeria – the Arab representative on the body – submitted a draft statement blaming Israeli forces for “opening fire”.
While 14 of the 15 council members supported the motion, the United States blocked it, the AP news agency reported, citing Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour, who spoke to reporters afterwards. U.S. envoy Robert Wood said the facts of the incident remained unclear.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the incident, saying: “The desperate civilians in Gaza urgently need help, including those in the north, where the UN has been unable to provide assistance for more than a week.”
Earlier, US President Joe Biden expressed concern that the incident would complicate mediators' efforts to negotiate a temporary ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, while France said “fire by Israeli soldiers against civilians trying to get food.” “to achieve” is “unjustifiable”.
Hamas has warned that talks in Qatar over a new ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages it is holding could now be in jeopardy.
Image source: ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES
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The Israeli military released aerial videos showing hundreds of Palestinians crowding around aid trucks
Israeli aerial photos show hundreds of people on and around the trucks, while graphic videos posted online show bodies being loaded onto empty aid trucks and a donkey cart.
Thursday's incident occurred shortly after 04:45 (02:45 GMT) 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) called a “humanitarian corridor” when it was surrounded by civilians and people climbed onto the trucks.
“Some began violently pushing to death and even trampling other Gazans and looted humanitarian supplies,” said IDF chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. “Dozens of people were killed and injured in the Gaza Strip in the unfortunate incident.”
Israeli tanks, he said, “carefully tried to disperse the mob with a few warning shots” but retreated “as hundreds became thousands and things got out of control.”
“No IDF attack was carried out against the aid convoy,” he said, emphasizing that the Israeli military tried to help the aid convoy reach its destination.
A Palestinian witness speaking to the BBC described panic in the crowd and among riders trying to move forward. Most of the deceased were run over, the witness added.
Dozens of victims in critical or serious condition were taken to the nearby al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where doctors were unable to cope with the number and severity of the cases.
A man at the hospital cradling the body of that dead friend, Tamer Shinbari, told the BBC he went to the roundabout in Nabulsi hoping to pick up a bag of flour for his family. He said Israeli soldiers opened fire “and the aid truck drove over the bodies.”
All or most of the injured treated at two other hospitals, Kamal Adwan and al-Awda, had gunshot or shrapnel wounds, officials there said.
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Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia said it was receiving dead and wounded people from western Gaza City
The incident came hours before Gaza's Health Ministry 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. Around 7,000 people were missing and 70,450 injured, it said.
The UN is warning of impending famine in the territory's north, where an estimated 300,000 people live with little food and clean water.
The Israeli military launched a large-scale air and ground campaign to destroy Hamas – which is banned as a terrorist organization by Israel, Britain and others – after its gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took 253 hostages in southern Israel.
Reacting to Thursday's incident, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a Hamas rival based in the occupied West Bank, accused Israeli forces of a “heinous massacre.”
A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he condemned the incident and reiterated calls for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages.”
The north of the Gaza Strip suffered widespread devastation after the first phase of Israel's ground offensive and was largely cut off from humanitarian aid for several months.
Last week, the World Food Program said it had been forced to suspend aid deliveries to the region after its first convoy in three weeks was surrounded by crowds of hungry people near an Israeli checkpoint and then faced gunfire in Gaza City.
On Tuesday, a senior U.N. aid official warned that at least 576,000 people across Gaza – a quarter of the population – face catastrophic food insecurity and one in six children under two in the north are suffering from acute malnutrition.
According to the Ministry of Health, ten children have died of dehydration and malnutrition in hospitals in northern Gaza in recent days.