Calls are unfolding for an investigation into one of the worst tragedies to erupt in the war between Israel and Hamas, after dozens of Palestinians were killed trying to access food aid in Gaza City on Thursday.
At least 112 other people were killed and 760 wounded in an incident in which Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops fired live ammunition as hungry and desperate Palestinian civilians piled up around food aid trucks, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza. be able to independently verify those figures.
The incident came against a backdrop of famine and excessive poverty in the besieged enclave, where food aid is so scarce that it causes panic when it arrives.
But there are conflicting accounts of the devastation, complex in Israel and in eyewitnesses on the ground.
The United Nations has said an independent investigation will be carried out to identify the facts, and countries, France adding, have supported the call.
Here’s what we know.
The deaths came amid scenes of chaos on Haroun Al Rasheed Street, west of Gaza City, where crowds of hungry Palestinians had gathered to call for help.
A convoy of at least 18 food trucks arrived Thursday morning around 4:30 a. m. m. , sent through countries in the region such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to eyewitnesses.
Civilians piled up en masse around newly arrived aid trucks hoping to get food, and Israeli forces soon began firing, witnesses said.
Aid trucks tried to escape the area, hitting others and causing more deaths and injuries, witnesses told CNN. Ambulances struggled to reach those in need because debris blocked the road, one of the witnesses, Ahmad Abu Al Foul, told CNN.
Most of the casualties were caused by other people run over by aid trucks trying to escape Israeli fire, according to local journalist Khader Al Za’anoun, a local journalist in Gaza.
An injured Palestinian receives medical treatment at Al-Shifa hospital following the incident.
Al Za’anoun, who was at the scene and witnessed the incident, said that although large crowds expected food to be distributed through the aid trucks, the chaos and confusion that led to other people being run over by the trucks only started once. Israeli infantrymen began shooting.
“Most of the dead were hit by aid trucks during the chaos and while trying to escape Israeli fire,” al-Za’anoun said.
Israel presented a changing account of the incident as the day progressed.
In its opening remarks, the Israeli military said the incident began when Palestinians tried to loot the trucks. “Early this morning, as the humanitarian aid trucks entered the northern Gaza Strip, Gazans surrounded the trucks and looted the materials they had delivered. During the incident, dozens of Gazans were injured as a result of the stampede and trampling,” the IDF told CNN.
Later on Thursday, an Israeli army spokesman told a news briefing that there had been two separate incidents involving trucks in Gaza on Thursday.
First, he said the trucks entered northern Gaza and were pushed through the crowd, crushing people. Subsequently, he said, an organization of Palestinians approached Israeli forces, who then opened fire on the Palestinians.
“The trucks headed north, then there was a stampede and then there was a clash with our forces. That’s what happened this morning,” the spokesperson said.
This timeline contradicts eyewitness accounts, which suggest that the Israeli army opened fire on other people near the trucks, causing the drivers to panic.
At a press conference on Thursday, IDF spokesman Daniel Hargari denied that there had been an attack on the convoy. He said Israeli tanks fired cautionary shots to disperse crowds around a humanitarian convoy in Gaza, after seeing other people being trampled on.
He insisted that the tanks were there “to protect the humanitarian corridor” so that the humanitarian convoy could reach its destination.
The Israeli military released a short video that appears to show a tank driving parallel to the crowd, several meters away.
“As you can see in this video, the tanks that were there to protect the convoy are watching Gazans being trampled on and are cautiously looking to disperse the crowd with some precautionary shots,” Hagari said.
When the crowd began to swell and “things got out of control,” the tank withdrew to harm Gazans, he added.
“I think, as an army man, they were safely backing off, risking their own lives and firing into the crowd,” he said.
More than a million people in Gaza are on the brink of famine, U. N. agencies warned Tuesday, as the war in the enclave drags on for just five months.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said at least another 576,000 people in Gaza “face catastrophic degrees of deprivation and famine. “Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) has warned “of a genuine prospect of famine until May”. , with another 500,000 people at risk if the threat materializes. “
“Today, almost the entire population, 2. 2 million people, is in need of food aid. Gaza has the worst level of child malnutrition in the world,” WFP Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told the Security Council in his consultation on Tuesday. “One in six children under the age of 2 are acutely malnourished. “
Israel’s war against Hamas has resulted in the displacement of almost the entire population of Gaza. (Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters, CNN Newsource)
Help has been so scarce that, when it has been available, it has caused panic. Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warned of chaotic scenes around aid trucks in Gaza, in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour earlier this week. .
“In fact, the chaos around the humanitarian hotline is worsening and more and more aid is arriving,” he said.
“Today I’m shocked by what I saw,” he continued. As soon as we crossed the border. . . You see the aid trucks running down the road, chased between gangs of young people who climbed into the trucks and, before our eyes, looting mattresses, blankets, food, etc. , from other desperate people who are outside and in need of help.
The U. S. State Department expressed condolences for the dead and wounded and said the U. S. is pressing Israel for answers.
“Too many innocent Palestinians have died in this conflict, today alone and in the last five months,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at a news conference.
“We have been in contact with the Israeli government since early this morning and an investigation is underway,” he said.
Miller said the U. S. was aware of “conflicting reports” about what happened and said only that he knew of a non-U. N. industrial convoy delivering the aid.
“If there’s one thing that the aerial footage of today’s incident makes clear, it’s how desperate the scenario is on the ground,” Miller said, calling on Israel to “allow more aid to Gaza, through as many access points as possible. “and allow for the safe distribution of this aid in Gaza.
The U. N. condemned the incident and said an investigation would be necessary. U. N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “horrified” by the rising death toll in Gaza and reiterated his calls for an early humanitarian ceasefire and the unconditional release of all Israelis. hostages in Gaza.
Its spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement: “Desperate civilians in Gaza need urgent assistance, adding those in the besieged north, where the United Nations has not been providing aid for more than a week. “
Saudi Arabia also condemned the incident and called on the foreign network to “adopt a corporate stance to force Israel to respect foreign humanitarian law,” while the United Arab Emirates called for an “independent and transparent investigation. “
Colombia announced it would suspend arms purchases from Israel following the killings. “This is called genocide and it is reminiscent of the Holocaust, even though world powers don’t like to acknowledge it,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said in a message. .
French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné supported calls for an investigation. Speaking to French radio France Inter, Séjourné called the events “indefensible and unjustifiable. “
The French Foreign Ministry also issued a statement on Thursday saying France was “waiting for all the kindness to be poured out on the aforementioned acts, which are very serious. “
Thursday’s tragedy represents one of the deadliest incidents in Gaza since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas.
And it came at a critical time for the conflict, when negotiations between Israel and Hamas on an agreement to suspend fighting and allow humanitarian aid to Gaza came to an end.
Izzat al-Risheq, a senior Hamas figure, warned that the killing of other people picking up aid from trucks in Gaza could simply lead to the failure of the ongoing talks.
“The negotiations are not an open process,” he said in a statement released by Hamas on Telegram.
“We will not allow the course of the negotiations . . . [becomes] a canopy for the enemy’s continued crimes against our other peoples in the Gaza Strip,” Al-Risheq said.
At the State Breakdown briefing, Miller also said the incident showed how necessary it was to achieve “a transitory ceasefire imaginable as part of a hostage deal” to allow more aid to arrive.
“We continue to work around the clock to achieve this outcome, adding through calls (from President Joe Biden) this morning with Egyptian President al-Sisi and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim, as well as with Secretary Blinken who previously held with the Qatari government. Prime Minister, Minister Al Thani,” Miller said.
“All of the leaders who participated in those calls agreed that this terrible occasion underscores the urgency of ending the hostage talks. “
President Biden said Monday, in an appearance at an ice cream parlor in New York, that he expected there to be a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas standoff “next Monday,” through officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar, who are helping mediate. Negotiations have distanced themselves from this chronology.
Biden said Thursday that “there are two competing versions of what happened” that his administration is seeking. Asked via CNN’s Arlette Saenz at the White House on Thursday if she was concerned that the deaths would complicate negotiations, Biden responded, “Oh, I know it will. But he said he was confident an agreement on the hostages and a possible ceasefire could soon be reached.
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