It was a tragedy that occurred the day the Islamist movement Hamas announced that more than 30,000 people had died in nearly five months of war in the Palestinian territory. A crowd rushed on a food aid convoy in Gaza City, causing, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, 112 people to be shot dead and 760 injured this Thursday, March 29. An assessment that no independent source is however able to verify. This tragedy has sparked indignation within the international community and calls to establish the truth.
Two different versions quickly emerged. Hamas claims that the Israeli army opened fire on the crowd. Israel, for its part, recognizes “limited shooting” by soldiers who felt “threatened”, ensuring that the majority of those killed were killed in a stampede.
“Limited response, limited shots”
A witness told AFP that the violence broke out as thousands of desperate people in search of food gathered near the “Nablus roundabout” in western Gaza City. “Trucks full of aid got too close to some army tanks that were in the area and the crowd, thousands of people, stormed the trucks,” the witness said, refusing to comment. be named for security reasons. “The soldiers fired into the crowd because people were getting too close to the tanks.”
Hossam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, said all the victims were hit by “bullets and shrapnel from the occupying forces.”
Aerial footage released by the Israeli military shows what it says are dozens of Gazans surrounding aid trucks. An Israeli military official spoke of a first stampede, involving “thousands of people” during which “dozens of Gazans were injured and killed, some of them crushed by the trucks” that were driving. Part of the convoy continued on its way, pursued by “dozens of civilians” who approached tanks and Israeli forces, according to the official.
Convoys looted by desperate civilians
“The soldiers fired warning shots into the air, then shot at those who posed a threat,” he added, stressing that they had “a limited response, limited shooting.” In the evening, the spokesperson for the Israeli army, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, affirmed that the soldiers had carried out “neither tank fire nor airstrikes towards the convoy”. Daniel Hagari also indicated that the convoy of 38 trucks entering Gaza from the Rafah terminal, on the Egyptian border, was chartered by “private companies”, without further details.
On February 20, the World Food Program announced that despite widespread hunger, it was once again suspending aid deliveries to northern Gaza following the attack and looting of convoys by desperate civilians.
On February 18, a convoy had to repel “multiple attempts by people trying to board our trucks, then facing fire once they entered Gaza City,” the UN agency said. The next day, “several trucks were looted […] and a truck driver was beaten. The rest of the flour was spontaneously distributed from trucks in Gaza City, amid high tension and explosive anger,” he added.
International condemnations
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “shocked” by these events which he “condemned”. “We don’t know exactly what happened. But whether these people were killed by Israeli fire, whether they were crushed by crowds, or run over by trucks, these are acts of violence, in a certain way, linked to this conflict,” declared its spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric.
In Washington, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller indicated that his country, Israel’s faithful ally, demands “answers” after this tragedy. “We have been in contact with the Israeli government since early this morning and understand that an investigation is underway. We will follow this investigation closely and press for answers,” he added. The White House also announced that President Joe Biden had discussed this “tragic and alarming episode” on the telephone with the Emir of Qatar and the Egyptian president.
In Paris, President Emmanuel Macron expressed his “firmest disapproval of these shots” against civilians “targeted by Israeli soldiers” and demanded “truth, justice and respect for international law”.