Palestinian deaths in Gaza pass 30,000 as witnesses say Israeli forces fire on crowd waiting for aid

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: Associated Press

Israeli troops fired on a crowd of Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza City on Thursday, witnesses said. More than 100 people were killed, bringing the death toll since the start of the Israel-Hamas war to more than 30,000, according to health officials.

Hospital officials initially reported an Israeli strike on the crowd, but witnesses later said Israeli troops opened fire as people pulled flour and canned goods off of trucks.

The Israeli military declined to provide an on-the-record statement about the role of troops in the incident.
...
Separately, the Health Ministry said the Palestinian death toll from the war has climbed to 30,035, with another 70,457 wounded. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its figures but says women and children make up around two-thirds of those killed.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-29-2024-f9b5a62a80d8b83eac4946d3c85af58b?taid=65e05a21b0ea880001d4fa3d

---

Israeli troops opened fire at 'several people' in Gaza crowd - Israeli source tells Reuters

Reuters have just reported on a statement from the Israeli military on the attacks in Gaza City on Thursday.

An Israeli source said Israeli troops opened fire on Thursday at “several people” among a crowd that surrounded aid trucks in the Gaza Strip after feeling under threat.

Gaza health authorities had said more than 70 people waiting for aid were killed by Israeli fire, but a Gaza health ministry spokesperson said the death toll has now risen to 104 people.

In a statement, the Israeli military said dozens of people were injured in pushing and trampling that occurred as they tried to take aid from the trucks. It said the incident was under review.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/feb/29/middle-east-crisis-live-updates-israel-hamas-war-latest-today-gaza-death-toll-hamas-health-ministry?page=with:block-65e06e968f08b6f9684f4825#block-65e06e968f08b6f9684f4825

Egypt and Jordan condemn what they describe as the 'shameful crime' and 'brutal targeting' of Palestinians seeking aid

Egypt and jordan have issued separate statements condeming Israel after the incident this morning which health officials in the Gaza Strip say has killed at least 104 people.

In a statement, Jordan’s foreign ministry said:

We condemn the Israeli occupation forces’ brutal targeting of the gathering of Palestinians who were waiting for aid on the Nabulsi roundabout near Al-Rashid street in Gaza.

Egypt issued a statement which said “We consider targeting peaceful citizens rushing to pick up their share of aid a shameful crime and a flagrant violation of international law” after saying the country condemned the “inhumane Israeli targeting” of what it described as “unarmed Palestinian civilians in the Nabulsi roundabout in the northern Gaza.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/feb/29/middle-east-crisis-live-updates-israel-hamas-war-latest-today-gaza-death-toll-hamas-health-ministry?page=with:block-65e07f758f08e4761434231d#block-65e07f758f08e4761434231d

[marble falls]

1. Your defense aid tax dollars at work.

[Brenda]

3. Evil Fucking Shit. Biden needs to cut all weapons/money to Israel right now.

[marble falls]

4. Right now: stop the slaughter or all US aid programs will stop.

[TeamProg]

11. That makes no sense. The aid is supposed to help THOSE BEING SLAUGHTERED!

[TeamProg]

12. Wait, you do mean stop aid to Israel, right?

[enid602]

2. 😭

😭

[enid602]

5. Aid shipment

On the bright side, at least an aid shipment actually got through.

[TeamProg]

10. I'm sorry, I'm not sure if that was sarcasm or not.

[Goddessartist]

6. The IDF

guys with the guns felt 'under threat' by hungry people. Imagine that.

[womanofthehills]

7. UN Geneva -One in every 20 Gaza children are dead

”About one in every 20 children, women and men in #Gaza are now dead or wounded.
𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙖𝙜𝙚 .”

- @volker_turk speaks at #HRC55 on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory


https://x.com/ungeneva/status/1763172558256406837?s=46&t=YZgyyp4w_z7vW3neKxa6cQ

[Igel]

41. 30,000 dead.

2.3 million to start off with.

30 000/2 300 000 = 1.3%

1/20 is 5%.

He'll be correct at 115 000 dead men, women and children Gazans. We can quibble over whether it's 30k or 35k, but there's still a bit of a gulf in his calculations.

Or have I missed an update with 80 000 dead today in Gaza?

[speak easy]

8. Too many have died

but I do not believe one word the Hamas Health Ministry says without evidence to the contrary.

[SunSeeker]

21. Yup. The AP has already had to amend their headline. The crowd was not "waiting," it was stampeding the trucks.

The AP changed "waiting" to "seeking" after the IDF released aerial video of hundreds of men stampeding the trucks.

This happened at night in northern Gaza. The IDF troops trying to maintain order were overwhelmed and resorted to firing gunshots on the crowd.

As the article states, it has become nearly impossible to deliver aid there due to a "breakdown in public order."

[TeamProg]

9. How sure was the IDF that those were all Hamas members gathered to receive aid? Was Hamas

right there among this group using these starving adults and children as human shields? Were these people seeking aid armed to the teeth with those Iranian supplied Assault Weapons?

Maybe I’m being overly emotional but shooting to kill a group of people in a group waiting to receive aid looks a lot more like mass murder than war to my eyes.

IMO, History will not be kind.

[Novara]

13. These are war crimes

Most of the dead are civilians. Thousands of children.

Killing civilians when they are in refugee camps because you destroyed their homes and killing civilians who are starving and reaching for food because you destroyed their cities should be fucking war crimes. That's genocide.

[SunSeeker]

24. It's not genocide. The aerial video shows the crowd stampeding the trucks. Looks like all were men.

This is northern Gaza. Most families have left northern Gaza.

The AP headline no longer contains the word "waiting." The OP headline no longer matches the AP article's headline, which apparently has been amended as more facts have come to light. As the article indicates, this occurred at night, right before daybreak, after word got out that aid trucks had arrived, and crowds of hundreds of men started swarming the trucks as they tried to drive down the road. Many were run over by the trucks trying to drive away.

The IDF troops were there to guard the trucks and got overwhelmed and threatened. It is a tragic situation.

Gift WaPo link shows aerial view of the men stampeding the trucks: https://wapo.st/3OXXedW

[Novara]

25. They are fucking hungry.

[SunSeeker]

34. No doubt.

[Alpeduez21]

26. After being starved by Israel they deserved to be shot by Israel, got it /nt

[SunSeeker]

31. They were shot because they swarmed the trucks and created a threat to the trucks.

Many were killed by getting run over by the trucks as the trucks tried to get away from the crowds of men.

The BBC story on it describes one eyewitness telling BBC that the bulk of the casualties were caused by the trucks running people over, not by the Israeli gunfire.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-68438112?src_origin=BBCS_BBC

[Alpeduez21]

38. No it's a sound "military" practice

Starve the population, which is a war crime, but Hamas sooooooo. Then when a pittance of food becomes available shoot the starving people trying to get food. It’s OK for the IDF to act like a state sponsored terrorist organization because Hamas ,Oct 7, etc……. Also people “where getting run over by truck”, so shoot them to preserve the trucks. Like I said “got it.”

[SunSeeker]

40. Israel warned the civilian population to move out of northern Gaza, where this happened.

If they can't guarantee the safety of the truck convoy drivers, nobody will want to deliver food there.

More aid is getting through to Southern Gaza.

Sadly, nobody wants to take in Palestinians as even temporary refugees. When Jordan did, the Palestinians tried to overthrow the Jordanian government. Egypt is building a wall at Rafah. Nobody in the region wants them. But Biden is trying to extend their emergency refugee status in the US, with vicious pushback from Republicans of course.

[Aussie105]

42. Stop using trucks.

Dropping off supplies at fixed locations to a starving and panicked people under IDF eyes is asking for trouble.

Start using aeroplanes.
Do drops in Gaza.
Unannounced, and at different locations.

IDF will have less of an unruly crowd to fire at in 'self defense'.

. . . not sure what the 'D' stands for in 'IDF'. Maybe 'stormtroopers' in a language I'm not familiar with?

As for 'nobody wants them' as refugees, maybe the surrounding countries would like a different solution . . . I don't know . . . Palestinians living in Palestine without the constant violence from Israel, possibly?

[Beastly Boy]

45. Consider it done.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-789377

As part of a joint-coordination effort, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, France, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States airdropped various supplies to Gazan residents.

The coordinated effort by these states saw supplies such as food and medical equipment airdropped to residents of southern Gaza and the Jordanian field hospital on Tuesday.

[cstanleytech]

44. I wonder if it was staged to bring more pressure on Israel since it makes no sense otherwise to

swarm the trucks that are bringing the needed aid in unless the goal is to fabric more outrage against Israel .

[enid602]

29. Noble

Video shows shooting of starving children people from a drone. So noble and heroic.

[SunSeeker]

33. No, the video shows no shooting or children, just men stampeding trucks.

Nothing noble and heroic, just tragic. And it all started with Hamas intentionally and sadistically attacking civilians on October 7.

[enid602]

36. Quibble

IDF spokesman said on CNN this AM that those shot were shot by IDF and by drone. Would think the video came from the drone. Quibble much?

[SunSeeker]

37. Facts matter.

The BBC story on it describes one eyewitness telling BBC that the bulk of the casualties were caused by the trucks running people over, not by the Israeli gunfire.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-68438112?src_origin=BBCS_BBC

[enid602]

30. Drone

Video shows shooting of starving people from a drone. So noble and heroic.

[SunSeeker]

39. No, the video shows no shooting or children, just men stampeding trucks.

Nothing noble and heroic, just tragic. And it all started with Hamas intentionally and sadistically attacking civilians on October 7.

[IronLionZion]

14. Unless Hamas is hiding in the flour and canned goods

Netanyahu wants Palestinians to leave Gaza, dead or alive, and never come back.

Maybe some DUers will tell us Hamas eats food, therefore any Palestinian who wants food is Hamas.

[leftyladyfrommo]

15. This has become obscene and just plain unbearable. nt

[JustAnotherGen]

16. Link to wapo video

https://wapo.st/3OXXedW

I posted this in another thread (dupe of this in LBN).

Shows the crowd swarming the trucks - definitely not an Israeli air strike.

But in this conflict - it doesn't matter.

Every single Israeli could be forcibly moved by the world tomorrow -

And still they would be painted as evil for wanting to take family photos and sentimental items. It would be considered an act of genocide to keep baby pictures. Like - that's where we are at.

[maxsolomon]

19. They all pray to the same God, for starters. Jews, Christians, Muslims.

I do not agree with what you wrote comparing Jews to Nazis and the IDFs actions in Gaza as being equivalent to gassing millions of Jews in concentration camps, and the sentiment is problematic.

Hopefully, that meets your "non combative manner" requirements. I didn't alert on you but I wouldn't be surprised if someone did.

[madaboutharry]

28. Here is my disagreement in a non-combative and civil manner:

Your post is a disgraceful rewriting of the historical record of The Third Reich and the Holocaust.

[SunSeeker]

18. They weren't "waiting." It was a stampede on the first aid trucks to reach northern Gaza in a month.

The AP headline no longer contains the word "waiting." Your headline no longer matches the AP article's headline, which apparently has been amended as more facts have come to light. The article explains that it is becoming "nearly impossible" to deliver aid to northern Gaza due to a "breakdown of public order":

While many Palestinians fled the Israeli invasion in the north, a few hundred thousand are believed to remain in the area, which has suffered widespread devastation and has been largely isolated during the conflict. Trucks carrying food reached northern Gaza this week, the first major aid delivery to the area in a month, officials said Wednesday.

Aid groups say it has become nearly impossible to deliver humanitarian assistance in most of Gaza because of the difficulty of coordinating with the Israeli military, ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of public order, with crowds of desperate people overwhelming aid convoys. 

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-29-2024-f9b5a62a80d8b83eac4946d3c85af58b?taid=65e05a21b0ea880001d4fa3d

As the article indicates, this occurred at night, right before daybreak, after word got out that aid trucks had arrived, and crowds of hundreds of men started swarming the trucks as they tried to drive down the road. Many were run over by the trucks trying to drive away.

The IDF troops were there to guard the trucks and got overwhelmed and threatened. It is a tragic situation.

Gift WaPo link shows aerial view of the men stampeding the trucks: https://wapo.st/3OXXedW

[maxsolomon]

20. Your explanation is likely to fall on deaf ears

in this thread. The kneejerk condemnation brigade is out.

[SunSeeker]

23. Yup. A lot of people only read the (now inaccurate) headline. nt

[EX500rider]

22. Yeah the BBC story on it has this:

One eyewitness told the BBC that the bulk of the casualties were caused by the trucks running people over, not by the Israeli gunfire

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-68438112?src_origin=BBCS_BBC

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. Ah, those well-known walking stampedes

The video shows people walking to the trucks. I can accept a description of a "swarm", but not a "stampede", which is an IDF attempt to deflect blame. The IDF troops were not "threatened" by people walking towards them.

[SunSeeker]

35. If you want to call it a "swarm," fine.

Either way, they weren't just "walking," as anyone can see on the video.

As noted above, the BBC story on it describes one eyewitness telling BBC that the bulk of the casualties were caused by the trucks running people over, not by the Israeli gunfire.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-68438112?src_origin=BBCS_BBC

[MOMFUDSKI]

27. Isn't this way past

an eye for an eye? Just askin’

[Aussie105]

43. It is.

We have entered the Age of Genocide, Israeli style.
There are a few passages in the Bible that go way beyond 'an eye for an eye'.

https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Genocide

Hosea 13:16
"Samaria will be held guilty,
For she has rebelled against her God.
They will fall by the sword,
Their little ones will be dashed in pieces,
And their pregnant women will be ripped open."

Source: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Genocide

I guess Bibi reads the Bible a lot?

Why were IDF troops at the trucks in the first place?
The supplies weren't for them.

(And when do the airdrops start? )

EDIT: Don't blame me if this post is found offensive enough to be deleted.
I'm just quoting from the Bible, after all.