The aid convoy that turned into a disaster on Thursday, leaving scores of Palestinians dead, was part of a new Israeli operation to deliver much-needed food to Gaza residents by working directly with local Palestinian businessmen, an Israeli official said Businessmen and Western diplomats.
In a rare move, Israel helped organize at least four such aid convoys to northern Gaza last week after international aid groups halted their operations in the region, citing Israel's refusal to give the green light to aid transports , and that lawlessness increased. But on Thursday that attempt got out of control.
Two Western diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter, said the Israeli aid effort sought to fill a gap left by the United Nations and other aid agencies. The Israeli military and the Israeli prime minister's office declined to comment.
According to two Palestinian businessmen involved in the operation, Izzat Aqel and Jawdat Khoudary, Israeli military officials approached several Gazan businessmen and asked them to help organize at least four private aid convoys to the north.
Mr. Aqel said in an interview with The New York Times that he helped provide some of the trucks involved on Thursday. An Israeli military officer, he said, had called him about 10 days earlier and asked him to organize aid trucks with as much food and drink as possible to the north of the Gaza Strip.
On Thursday, an Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said that this convoy was part of a multi-day humanitarian operation to distribute food supplies in Gaza, which was being monitored by Israeli troops.
“For the last four days, convoys like the one we did this morning – there were 38 truckloads this morning – have been going to the northern Gaza Strip to distribute food, which is international donations but transported in private vehicles “will be,” he told British broadcaster Channel 4 on Thursday.
It was unclear who purchased the supplies carried on the trucks and whether other parties were involved in that part of the operation.
More than 100 Palestinians were killed and more than 700 others injured Thursday as they gathered around trucks loaded with food and other aid in the predawn darkness, according to Gaza health authorities.
Witnesses reported extensive firing by Israeli forces amid widespread panic, and doctors in Gaza hospitals said most of the dead and injured were caused by gunfire. Gaza health authorities called it “a massacre.”
The Israeli military said its troops opened fire after members of the crowd approached them “in a way that put them in danger.” She attributed most of the deaths to a clash when hungry Palestinians tried to seize the cargo.
The United Nations has warned that more than 570,000 people in the Gaza Strip are facing “catastrophic levels of deprivation and hunger” after nearly five months of war and a near-total Israeli siege of the territory following the October 7 Hamas-led attacks.
Witnesses said thousands of Gazans had camped overnight in anticipation of the convoy's arrival on Thursday, desperate for some of the food that was said to be on the way.
Since the start of the war, Israel has imposed restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid. Their bombings and ground invasion have decimated Hamas's control of the northern Gaza Strip, leaving both a gaping security vacuum and a humanitarian disaster.
Israeli leaders have repeatedly said that while they want to maintain “security control” in Gaza, they want civil matters such as health and education to be handled by others.
The misery in Gaza has recently become even more evident.
Some residents raided the pantries of neighbors who had fled their homes, while others ground animal feed into flour. UN aid convoys transporting essential goods to the north of the Gaza Strip have been suspended for days.
“My family, friends and neighbors are dying of hunger,” Mr. Khoudary said. Like Mr. Aqel, Mr. Khoudary said he had organized some of the trucks carrying aid as part of the aid initiative involving Israel.
“I am a pragmatic man,” he added. “I support anyone who wants to help Gaza.”
The humanitarian crisis worsened last week after the World Food Program, along with UNRWA, the U.N. agency that serves Palestinians in Gaza, halted aid deliveries to the north. The World Food Program, also a UN body, cited the overwhelming lawlessness that prevailed in the region.
In private conversations, Israeli officials said they began the aid operation in the north in coordination with private Gazan businessmen, given the U.N. decision to stop sending convoys there, according to the two Western diplomats.
An Israeli security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter, confirmed that Israel coordinated the convoys with private businessmen from Gaza.
Flooding the northern Gaza Strip with food, U.N. officials said, would ease people's desperation and encourage them not to surround trucks as they enter the area.
Mr. Aqel said the operation's first three convoys – each consisting of 15 to 25 trucks – had been driving into northern Gaza since this week without any problems. Some were relief trucks he dispatched, while others were organized by other contractors, he said.
The convoy, which ended in bloodshed, left the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and Gaza before heading to northern Gaza, aiming to reach areas that had not received aid for weeks, Mr. Aqel said . To ensure the safety of the trucks, they drove into the north of the Gaza Strip in the dark around 4:45 a.m., he added
“But thousands of people came to the coastal road to take the coming supplies,” Mr Aqel said. “They knew supplies were coming, so they stayed outside and waited until daybreak.”
Desperate Gazans then crowded around the trucks and tried to confiscate the supplies, leading to crushes, gunfire and chaos, Mr. Aqel said.
“If they had waited, we would have sent them more help,” he said. “But they were hungry.”
—Aaron Boxerman and Adam Rasgon