At least 20 people were killed overnight by gunfire at an aid distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip, the Hamas health ministry announced early Friday, March 15, accusing the Israeli army to be at the origin of this attack. For its part, the latter claims that “armed Palestinians” fired on the crowd, rejecting these accusations. During the night, the army had already refuted having fired on Gazans who had come to seek food aid, but without detailing its version of the facts.
“Israeli occupying forces targeted a gathering of citizens waiting for humanitarian aid [at a traffic circle in Gaza City]. The toll of victims transported to Al-Shifa Hospital was revised upwards [to] 20 dead and 155 injured,” said the health ministry in the Hamas-administered Gaza Strip.
On site, at the hospital, an Agence France-Presse employee saw numerous ambulances transporting corpses and gunshot wounds.
Fear of widespread famine
The United Nations fears widespread famine in the territory besieged by Israel, particularly in the difficult-to-access North, where around 300,000 people currently live.
Faced with the humanitarian emergency, several countries have decided to diversify the delivery routes of aid to the population, using airdrops or a maritime corridor from Cyprus with a first ship, from the NGO Open Arms, expected in the coming hours.
At the end of February, more than a hundred people lost their lives, according to Hamas, in a food aid distribution which turned into a nightmare in the north of the Gaza Strip where Israeli forces admitted to having opened fire on Palestinians justifying that its soldiers there then considered themselves “threatened”.
