An eyewitness to the massacre said that ‘The trucks entered, we approached, and then the Jews started shooting at us. We raised our hands to indicate that we were civilians, but they didn’t stop shooting at us.’
Haaretz
At least 67 Palestinians were murdered on Sunday by Israeli army fire in northern Gaza while waiting for humanitarian aid, Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said.
According to reports in Palestinian and Arab media, the Palestinians were shot dead while waiting for aid trucks near the northern Gaza border with Israel.
The IDF said that thousands of Gazans had gathered in northern Gaza and that soldiers fired on them ‘to remove an immediate threat to the forces.’
The military acknowledged that it was aware of claims that there had been ‘casualties’, but added that ‘a preliminary review indicates that the reported number of casualties does not align with existing information.’
The army added that ‘details of the incident are still under review.’
An eyewitness who spoke to Radio Alam said that ‘The trucks entered, we approached, and then the Jews started shooting at us. We raised our hands [to indicate] we are civilians, but they didn’t stop shooting at us.’
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation denied involvement in the incident in a statement on X. ‘We’re deeply saddened by reports,’ the aid group said, adding that ‘Like most violent incidents, this incident is not linked to GHF, despite what was falsely implied by Al Jazeera.’
‘The entire aid system is under immense strain. We hope reporters will cover these incidents with the same scrutiny GHF receives because understanding the full picture is essential to protecting civilians and improving aid delivery,’ it said.
The incident occurred in northern Gaza, an area where there are no GHF distribution centers. Earlier this month, the foundation claimed that ‘the deadliest attacks on aid sites have been related to UN convoys,’ but according to data from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), more than 75 percent of aid seekers killed between May and early July died at GHF distribution areas.
The Gaza Health Ministry said that in the past 24 hours, at least 130 bodies have arrived at hospitals in the Strip. The ministry added that at least 495 people have been wounded in the past day, including more than 150 who were seeking humanitarian aid.
The IDF said that the details are under investigation.
According to the ministry, at least 18 people died from hunger in the past day. Medical sources have reported a rise in hunger-related cases since Friday, to the point where it has been described as an ‘epidemic.’ According to the sources, hundreds are suffering from exhaustion, severe malnutrition, and memory loss, all of which are symptoms of prolonged starvation.
The worsening of these symptoms in recent days was likely due to the extreme heat.
Dr. Suheib Al-Hams, director of the field hospital in the Muwasi humanitarian zone, warned on Friday of an impending ‘wave of deaths’ expected due to organ system failure in displaced people. ‘The cases reaching us are of people who collapsed in the streets from malnutrition. Everyone needs food even before medicine.’
The Health Ministry in Gaza said that since the beginning of the war, 58,895 people have been murdered in the Strip, including 8,066 since the resumption of fighting in March.
I have lost count on how many times this has happened. To borrow a phrase from Mike Piper “Excuse my Yiddish, buy what the $@&% must the Jews do for the US Congress and President to end all aid to them and call them out?”