The director of a Gazan hospital and the Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip, administered by Hamas, reported on Thursday, February 29, the deaths of dozens of people during a distribution of food aid in the Gaza City, Thursday, February 29.
The emergency director of Al-Shifa Hospital, Amjad Aliwa, announced that 50 people were killed and more than 120 injured, “including women and children, following shooting by the occupying forces towards thousands of citizens” rushing to “aid trucks.” The Israeli army, in a message broadcast on Telegram, does not mention any shooting, declares that Gazans had surrounded the trucks and looted the delivered supplies and writes that “during the incident, dozens of Gazans were injured by shoving and trampling.”
The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip administered by Hamas, for its part, described the situation as a “massacre” and announced at least 104 dead and 760 injured. Witnesses also told Agence France-Presse (AFP) of scenes during which thousands of people rushed towards aid trucks arriving at the “Nablus roundabout” in the west of the city. from Gaza.
2.2 million people at risk of starvation
The United Nations (UN) estimates that 2.2 million people, the vast majority of Gaza’s population, are at risk of starvation, particularly in the north where destruction, fighting and looting almost make impossible the delivery of humanitarian aid.
According to the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), just over 2,300 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip in February, a drop of around 50% from January. and a daily average of some 82 trucks per day. According to the UN, an average of about 500 trucks entered the Gaza Strip daily before the war began on October 7, when the needs of the local population were lower.
Palestinians in Gaza have told AFP in recent days that they are forced to eat leaves or fodder for livestock, or even slaughter draft animals for food. The head of the UN humanitarian aid coordination office for the Palestinian Territories, Andrea De Dominico, recently told AFP that on several occasions when food convoys arrived in the north from Gaza, “thousands of people had blocked trucks to unload them at the risk of being shot.”
