Palestinian officials and the Israeli military have put forward conflicting explanations as to how multiple people were killed in yet another incident while they were waiting for a delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza on Thursday evening.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, at least 20 people were killed and another 155 were injured when Israeli forces intentionally “targeted” those waiting for the aid convoy at the Kuwaiti roundabout in Gaza City. The Israel Defense Forces has denied the allegation, claiming that “Palestinian gunmen” had been shooting near civilians before the convoy arrived.
The Gazan health ministry said people wounded in the incident had been taken to the Al Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City. It added that medical teams “are unable to deal with the volume and type of injuries arriving” to hospitals in northern Gaza due to staff and medical shortages which have plagued the enclave since the outbreak of war.
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Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, said in a post on X that the reports of Gazans being targeted at a “humanitarian aid distribution point are incorrect.” On Friday, he offered a more detailed account of what took place.
He claimed that 31 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were allowed into the Gaza Strip on Thursday. “About an hour before the aid convoy arrived at the humanitarian corridor, Palestinian gunmen were spotted shooting near Gazan civilians who were waiting for the convoy,” he said. “As the trucks entered, the gunmen continued to shoot while the crowds looted the truckloads. Some civilians who were injured as a result of being run over by trucks were also spotted.”
Adraee said the IDF would continue to investigate the incident but claimed an initial review had ruled out any Israeli fire from the air, tanks, or ground forces “towards the crowds in the vicinity of the aid convoy in the Kuwait roundabout.”
“While the IDF is making an intensive humanitarian effort and pumping food supplies and humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip, Hamas terrorists are targeting Gazans who are trying to obtain food supplies,” he claimed. “However, lies are being spread to accuse Israel of this, creating a false media wave in preparation for the first Friday of the month of Ramadan.”
The deaths Thursday echoed a similarly disputed event on Feb. 29, when at least 112 people were killed while waiting to collect flour in Gaza. The so-called “flour massacre” was condemned by U.N. officials who called for Israel to “end its campaign of starvation and targeting of civilians.”
The IDF said people were killed by “trampling” in a stampede triggered as crowds looted trucks though a military investigation reportedly found that an order had been given for troops to shoot at the legs of those allegedly posing a threat to Israeli soldiers.
A quarter of Gaza’s population is starving because of the war, according to the U.N. Israel is facing immense international pressure to allow more aid into the strip, where over 31,000 Palestinians have been killed over the course of the five-month conflict. The U.S. has announced plans to build a pier to allow more aid to enter Gaza and has joined Jordan and other countries in conducting airdrops, but humanitarian groups say safe land corridors are needed to supply the necessary quantities of support.
Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas killed 1,200 people and kidnapped another 250 on Oct. 7, according to Israeli figures.
