Military officials said that the convoy of 30 trucks was heading to northern Gaza before dawn and was met by huge crowds of people who tried to seize the aid they were carrying. Admiral Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesman, said dozens of Palestinians were killed in the stampede, and some were run over by trucks as drivers tried to escape.
He added that the Israeli forces guarding the area fired warning shots towards the crowd because they felt they were in danger.
“We did not shoot at those calling for help. Contrary to the accusations, we did not shoot at a humanitarian aid convoy, neither from the air nor from the ground. We secured it so that it could reach northern Gaza.”
Kamel Abu Nahl, who was receiving treatment for a gunshot wound at Al-Shifa Hospital, said that he and others went to the distribution point in the middle of the night because they heard that food would be delivered. “We have been eating animal feed for two months,” he said.
He said that Israeli forces opened fire on the crowd while people were pulling boxes of flour and canned goods from trucks, causing them to scatter and some to hide under cars. After the shooting stopped, people returned to the trucks, and the soldiers opened fire again. He added that he was shot in the leg and fell, then a truck ran over his leg as it was driving.
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Ashraf Al-Qudra, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said that at least 112 people were killed. The Ministry of Health described it as a “massacre.”
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan accused Israel of targeting civilians in the incident. In separate statements, they called for increasing safe passages for humanitarian aid. They also urged the international community to take decisive action to pressure Israel to abide by international law and reach an immediate ceasefire agreement.
The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to hold emergency closed consultations on the killings later Thursday at the request of Algeria, the Arab representative on the 15-nation council.
Growing concern about hunger across Gaza has increased international calls for a ceasefire, and the United States, Egypt and Qatar are working to secure an agreement between Israel and Hamas to stop the fighting and release some hostages taken by Hamas during its invasion in October. 7 attack.
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State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the incident underscores the urgent need to expand and sustain the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, including through a potential temporary ceasefire as part of the hostage deal.
“We are urgently seeking additional information about exactly what happened. We have been in contact with the Israeli government since early this morning and have learned that an investigation is underway. We will be monitoring this investigation closely and pressing for answers,” Miller said.
The mediators hope to reach an agreement before the holy month of Ramadan begins on approximately March 10. But so far, Israel and Hamas have remained publicly far apart on their demands.
Biden had previously expressed his hope that an agreement would be reached by Monday. That seems unlikely, he said Thursday.
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“Hope springs eternal,” Biden told reporters. “I've been on the phone with people from the area. Maybe not by Monday, but I'm optimistic.”
Asked whether the bloodshed in Gaza City on Thursday would complicate those efforts, he said: “I know it would.”
In a statement condemning Thursday’s attack, Hamas said it would not allow the negotiations “to be a cover for the enemy to continue his crimes.”
Paramedics who arrived at the scene of the bloodshed on Thursday found “dozens or hundreds” lying on the ground, according to Fares Afaneh, head of the ambulance service at Kamal Adwan Hospital. He said that there are not enough ambulances to transport all the dead and wounded, and that some are transported to hospitals on donkey carts.
Another man in the crowd — who gave only his first name, Ahmed, as he was treated in hospital for gunshot wounds to his arm and leg — said he waited for two hours before someone had a horse-drawn cart somewhere to take him. him to recovery.
The violence came more than a month after witnesses and health officials in Gaza accused Israeli forces of opening fire on a previous aid distribution in Gaza City, killing at least 20 people.
Dr. Muhammad Salha, acting director of Al Awda Hospital, said that the hospital received 161 wounded, most of whom appeared to have been hit by bullets. He said the hospital could only perform basic surgeries because it had run out of fuel needed to operate emergency generators.
The Ministry of Health said that the number of Palestinian deaths due to the war rose to 30,035, in addition to 70,457 wounded. The agency does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its numbers, but it says that women and children constitute about two-thirds of the dead.
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The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government in Gaza, keeps detailed records on casualties. Its statistics from previous wars largely match those of the United Nations, independent experts, and even those of Israel itself.
The Hamas attack on southern Israel, which sparked the war, killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and the militants took about 250 hostage. Hamas and other militants are still holding about 100 hostages and the remains of about 30 others, after most of the other prisoners were released during a ceasefire reached in November.
Violence has also escalated across the West Bank since October 7. An attacker shot and killed two Israelis at a gas station in the Eli settlement on Thursday, according to the Israeli military. The army said the attacker was killed.
Meanwhile, UN officials warned of further human casualties if Israel follows through on its pledge to attack the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people have taken refuge. They also say that the attack on Rafah may destroy what remains of the relief operations.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are believed to remain in northern Gaza despite Israeli orders to evacuate the area in October, and many have been forced to eat animal feed to survive. The United Nations says that one in six children under the age of two in the north suffers from acute malnutrition and wasting.
The Coordination Body of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli military body responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, said about 50 aid trucks entered northern Gaza this week. It was not clear who delivered the aid. Some countries have resorted to airdrops in recent days.
The World Food Program said earlier this month that it had temporarily halted aid deliveries to the north due to growing chaos, after desperate Palestinians emptied a convoy while it was en route.
Since launching its assault on Gaza following a Hamas attack on October 7, Israel has blocked the entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies, with the exception of a small amount of aid entering the south from Egypt via the Rafah crossing and Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing. Despite international calls to allow more aid in, the number of supply trucks is far fewer than the 500 that arrived daily before the war.
