By Max Jones / ScheerPost Staff Writer
There is growing international pressure for an investigation into the massacre by Israeli forces of at least 112 Palestinians killed in an open area of Gaza City while waiting among thousands for food and other humanitarian aid on Thursday. More than 750 people were wounded, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health on Thursday.
The U.K. has called for an “urgent investigation and accountability,” and France also called for an independent investigation. The French president, Emmanuel Macron said the civilians had been “targeted” by the IDF and “called for an immmediate ceasefire,” according to the Guardian.
CBS reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that the killings “were the result of ‘a violent gathering of Gazan residents’ around aid trucks, during which [the IDF] said dozens of people were ‘injured as a result of being crushed and trampled.’”
A spokesman for U.N. Secretary General, Stephane Dujarric, said that Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, which already was barely functioning, admitted more than 700 injured people on Thursday, and that among the injured were “a large number of gunshot wounds.”
The interim hospital manager at al-Adwa hospital, which the BBC says is where many of the dead and injured were taken, told the BBC “Al-Awda hospital received around 176 injured people…142 of these cases are bullet injuries and the rest are from the stampede and broken limbs in the upper and lower body parts.”
In response, President Biden said on Friday the U.S. will begin airdropping long-awaited humanitarian relief supplies into Gaza, commenting that “Innocent people got caught in a terrible war unable to feed their families.” Asked earlier if the tragic incident would complicate the ceasefire talks, he replied, “Oh, I know it will.”
There were divergent accounts of what happened. CBS reported that an IDF official claimed that “after the chaos, at a nearby crossing point between north and south Gaza, Israeli forces first fired warning shots and then opened fire on civilians who rushed toward aid trucks and an IDF tank with forces helping to secure the aid convoy. The official said IDF forces had ‘fired at those who posed a threat,’ and stressed that the incident remained under review.”
According to the French news service AFP, Avi Hyman, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the convoy was “overwhelmed by people trying to loot and drivers plowed into the crowd of people, ultimately killing tens of people.”
It is unclear exactly how the starving, unarmed Palestinians who were killed “posed a threat” to the highly militarized IDF.
As the Washington Post reported, “Much remains unclear, however, with contradictory claims from Israelis and Palestinians about what prompted a stampede around the trucks, the role of Israeli gunfire, and how many people were shot as distinct from being injured by the crush of people.” While it is uncertain how many Palestinians died as a result of trampling versus gunfire, the Post confirmed Israeli gunfire was shot into the crowds.
Further, in an “analysis of dozens of videos, including an edited video released by the Israel Defense Forces,” the Post claimed that the videos revealed “that crowds ran and ducked while lifeless bodies lay in the road near two Israeli armored vehicles.”
The IDF released aerial footage that showed Palestinians rushing to the humanitarian aid trucks, and some in Israeli media were quick to describe the Palestinians as having “attacked the trucks bringing humanitarian aid,” going on to describe how the Palestinians were killing each other despite the lack of evidence currently surrounding the causes of death.
The BBC found that this video released by the IDF is not a single video, but that “It has been edited into four sections.” The BBC found that the video shows two locations in which there are people surrounding the aid lorries. “The first two sections of video show people surrounding two or more lorries just south of the Nabulsi roundabout…The second two sections of video show events about 500m further south.”
In the second two sections, there are four aid lorries but also “what appear to be motionless figures lying on the ground.” Israeli military vehicles identified by the BBC were also nearby.
The BBC examined Al Jazeera video “filmed close to that second location at the rear of the convoy, about half a kilometer south of the roundabout.” In the video, “gunfire can be heard” and people “[scramble] over lorries and [duck] behind vehicles.”
The BBC also verified footage filmed where shooting occurred “of bodies being taken away on a cart north in the direction of Nabulsi roundabout.” Mahmoud Awadeyah, a journalist who was at the scene for the BBC, said the Israeli vehicles fired on the crowds when the aid arrived.
“Israelis purposefully fired at the men…they were trying to get near the trucks that had the flour…They were fired at directly and prevented people to come near those killed.”
It seems that the IDF edited the footage in such a way that hid the locations where the BBC confirmed gunfire occurred, according to the Palestinian youth news agency Quds News Network.
Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, cited the massacre as evidence that “the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza is…madness” and that it “also endangers the IDF soldiers.” He went on, “This is another clear reason why we must stop transferring this aid, which is in fact aid to harm the IDF soldiers and oxygen to Hamas.”
A White House national security spokesperson stated “We mourn the loss of innocent life and recognize the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where innocent Palestinians are just trying to feed their families. This underscores the importance of expanding and sustaining the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza, including through a potential temporary ceasefire. We continue to work day and night to achieve that outcome.”
According to the Guardian, “Biden and his administration have been trying unsuccessfully for months to persuade Benjamin Netanyahu to allow more aid into Gaza, but the president has opted so far not to use some of the powerful leverage the US has over Israel, including Israeli dependence on regular and substantial arms supplies.”
Whatever the number of Palestinians killed as a result of trampling or gunfire, it is clear that the Palestinians were driven to the aid trucks as a result of mass starvation imposed upon the population by the Israeli government since at least Oct. 2023 when the government made what Human Rights Watch called “catastrophic cuts to water, fuel, and electricity, as well as very limited deliveries of food, water, and medical supplies.” Currently, one in six toddlers in Gaza are acutely malnourished, the Gaza Strip stands on the brink of famine, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri says that Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians and UN officials have warned that famine is imminent in Gaza.
The United States provides $3.8 billion of military support to Israel every year, with much of Israel’s armament made up of American weapons. Israel is the largest recipient of security aid from the U.S.
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Max Jones
Max Jones is a staff writer and video producer for ScheerPost. A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Southern California, where he studied communications and screenwriting, he is following his post-USC plans to be an independent filmmaker and screenwriter, and a journalist at ScheerPost. He has covered various topics in both his web show Journalists for Sale and writing, focusing most heavily on issues of free speech, information warfare, and foreign policy.