——- More countries speak out against the shootings of Palestinians seeking food
——- Gaza health authorities say over 100 killed awaiting aid
——- UN Chief ‘condemns’ killing of over 100 Palestinians during aid delivery
DM Monitoring
GAZA: French authorities have called for an independent inquiry into the killing of more than 100 Pal-estinians who were collecting food aid in northern Gaza as global outrage against Israel’s attack grows.
At least 112 people were killed and more than 750 wounded in the attack, which occurred at the Nab-ulsi roundabout in Gaza City on Thursday.
Witnesses said Israeli soldiers opened fire as people gathered for flour while Israeli officials said their soldiers fired because they felt threatened when people stormed the aid trucks.
Speaking to national broadcaster France Inter, Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said France would not apply “double standards” to the Israel-Palestine conflict. “We will ask for explanations, and there will have to be an independent probe to determine what happened,” Sejourne said. “France calls things by their name. This applies when we designate Hamas as a terrorist group, but we must also call things by their name when there are atrocities in Gaza.”
Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron said the Palestinian aid seekers were “targeted by Israeli soldiers” and expressed his “strongest condemnation of these shootings.”
Reacting to the incident in a post on the social media platform X, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a “disregard for the Nabulsi roundabout massacre” and said he was the “political face” of Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister.
United States President Joe Biden did not condemn the shootings but said Washington was checking
“two competing versions” of the killings and the incident would complicate efforts to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas.
The United Nations Security Council, meanwhile, held a closed-door emergency meeting late on Thursday but failed to issue a statement condemning the killings after the US objected to placing blame on Israel, diplomatic sources told reporters. US Deputy Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood condemned the deaths before entering the chamber, but upon leaving, he said the US “does not have all the facts on the ground”. Meanwhile, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said on Friday that Beijing was shocked by the incident and strongly condemned the killings.
“China urges the relevant parties, especially Israel, to cease fire and end the fighting immediately, ear-nestly protect civilians’ safety, ensure that humanitarian aid can enter and avoid an even more serious humanitarian disaster,” Mao said.
Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it condemned “in the strongest terms the heinous massacre committed by the Israeli occupation” and called for “urgent international action” to halt the fighting in Gaza.
Doha warned that Israel’s “disregard for Palestinian lives … will ultimately undermine international ef-forts aimed at implementing the two-state solution and thus pave the way for the expansion of the cycle of violence in the region”.
Likewise, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the deaths and reiterated “the need to reach an immediate ceasefire”.
Jeddah renewed its “demands to the international community to take a firm position to oblige Israel to respect international humanitarian law, immediately open safe humanitarian corridors, allow the evacuation of the injured and enable the delivery of relief aid.
Turkey accused Israel of committing “another crime against humanity” and condemning Palestinians in Gaza to “famine” as civilians struggle to get the most basic of food supplies.
“The fact that Israel … this time targets innocent civilians in a queue for humanitarian aid is evidence that [Israel] aims consciously and collectively to destroy the Palestinian people,” the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
In Iran, authorities described the incident as a “barbaric attack by the Zionist regime” while Lebanon’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants said the incident fell “within the framework of the policy of mass starvation and extermination of the Palestinian people, which drives them to despair and adds fuel to the fire”.
Jordan and the Arab League have also denounced the killings.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said on Friday that she was “deeply dis-turbed by images from Gaza” and that “every effort must be made to investigate what happened and ensure transparency.”
Earlier, the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, posting on X, denounced the incident as “carnage”.
The foreign ministers of Spain, Italy, Belgium and Portugal have similarly spoken out against the deaths of aid seekers. Germany, a staunch backer of Israel, joined the calls to demand an “explanation” from Israel.
“People wanted relief supplies for themselves and their families and found themselves dead,” Ger-man Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on X.
“The reports from Gaza shock me. The Israeli army must fully explain how the mass panic and shooting could have happened.”
In South America, Colombian President Gustavo Petro moved to suspend purchases of weapons from Israel, a key supplier of his country’s security forces, saying Israel’s actions amount to a “genocide” of the Palestinian people.
“Asking for food, more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Netanyahu. This is called genocide and re-calls the Holocaust. The world must block Netanyahu,” Petro said.
Brazil also condemned the killings, saying Israel’s military operation has no “ethical or legal limits”.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said 30,228 Palestinians have died in the war since October 7. UN agencies have warned there’s a risk of “famine” in the strip if more aid does not enter soon.
Earlier, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the deadly “incident” in northern Gaza in which “more than 100 people were reportedly killed or injured while seeking life-saving aid”, a state-ment from his spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said.
The statement said, “The Secretary-General condemns the incident today in northern Gaza in which more than a hundred people were reportedly killed or injured while seeking life-saving aid. The des-perate civilians in Gaza need urgent help, including those in the besieged north where the United Na-tions has not been able to deliver aid in more than a week.”
Desperate for food, thousands of Palestinians in Gaza City flocked to an aid distribution point early Thursday, only to be met with a chaotic situation and live fire by Israeli troops, according to media re-ports.
An Israeli source, these reports said, has acknowledged that troops opened fire on the crowd, believ-ing it “posed a threat,” but a spokesperson for Israel’s prime minister office claimed that many people had been run over by the aid trucks.
Dujarric, the United Nations spokesman , said the events “need to be investigated.
“We don’t know exactly what happened but whether people were shot and died as a result of Israeli gunfire, whether they were crushed by a crowd, whether they were run over by truck, these are all acts of violence, in a sense, due to this conflict,” said Dujarric.
He said there was “no UN presence” at the scene and reiterated the secretary-general’s call for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages.”
“The desperate civilians in Gaza need urgent help, including those in the besieged north where the United Nations has not been able to deliver aid in more than a week,” Dujarric said, adding that Gu-terres was “appalled by the tragic human toll of the conflict.”
“Even after close to five months of brutal hostilities, Gaza still has the ability to shock us,” said UN relief chief Martin Griffiths in a post on X. “I am appalled at the reported killing and injury of hundreds of people during a transfer of aid supplies west of Gaza City today,” he said. “Life is draining out of Gaza at terrifying speed.”
Intense Israeli bombardment from air, land and sea continues to be reported across much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in further civilian casualties, displacement and destruction of civilian infrastructure, ac-cording to the latest situation report from UN humanitarian agency OCHA.
Ground operations and heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups also con-tinue to be reported, particularly in northern Gaza, Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.
Fears persist over the planned Israeli incursion into Rafah, where more than one million people are seeking shelter from the violence since Oct 7. 2023.
Rafah is under fire every day, said Georgios Petropoulos, OCHA’s head of the Gaza sub-office.
“We will do our best” to serve people in need with the resources at hand, he added. “We are needed here. We need people here to stand for hope and human dignity.”
Unless more aid is delivered, UN officials warned of an impending famine in Gaza. Local health authori-ties reported that six infants have already died as a result of malnutrition and dehydration, the OCHA report stated.
Besieged hospitals continue to grapple with raids and attacks, according to doctors trapped in the en-clave who continue to serve patients as best they can.
As health centres and hospitals persevere amid raids and dangerous shortages of lifesaving supplies, a Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) medical point in Jabalya, in northern Gaza, is receiving a daily average of 100 to 150 patients suffering from hepatitis A.
Meanwhile, stalled aid deliveries idle on border crossings with Egypt and Israel. Media reports indicate that Israel civilians were preventing trucks from entering Gaza at the Kerem Shalom cross-ing. Desperation among Gazans has multiplied as aid trickles into the enclave, with UN officials stating that the current, restricted deliveries do not even meet the minimum demands.
Also on Thursday, 17 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the European Union (EU) signed a joint appeal to restore funding to the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA.
“We urge the EU and Member States to take note that other aid agencies cannot replicate UNRWA’s central role in the humanitarian response in Gaza, and amidst the current crisis many will struggle to even maintain their current operations without UNRWA’s partnership and support,” they said in a statement.
The joint appeal comes after major UNRWA donors suspended funding following Israel’s allegations that a dozen staff members were involved in the Hamas attacks in October that triggered the current devastating war in the enclave. The donors withheld funds pending ongoing independent UN investi-gations of the matter.
“The suspension of funding to the main aid provider for millions of Palestinians in Gaza will impact life-saving assistance for over two million people,” said UNRWA, which serves almost 6 million Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, with education, healthcare and other essential services.
“Don’t look away from Gaza,” OCHA’s Petropoulos said. “Find the truth of what’s happening and be-lieve in humanity. The only good thing war can do is to end.”
