More than 100 Palestinians have been killed and some 700 others wounded after Israeli troops opened fire on hundreds waiting for food aid southwest of Gaza City, health officials say.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said on Thursday that at least 104 people were killed and more than 750 wounded, with the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemning what it said was a cold-blooded “massacre”.
The ministry said the attack was part of Israel’s ongoing “genocidal war”. It called on the international community to “urgently intervene” to forge a ceasefire as “the only way to protect civilians”.
People had congregated at al-Rashid Street, where aid trucks carrying flour were believed to be on the way.
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Al Jazeera says it verified footage showing the bodies of dozens of killed and wounded Palestinians being carried onto trucks as no ambulances could reach the area.
“We went to get flour. The Israeli army shot at us. There are many martyrs on the ground and until this moment we are withdrawing them. There is no first aid,” said one witness.
Al Jazeera’s Ismail al-Ghoul said that after opening fire, Israeli tanks advanced and ran over many of the dead and injured bodies. “It is a massacre, on top of the starvation threatening citizens in Gaza,” he said.
The dead and wounded had been taken to four medical centres: al-Shifa, Kamal Adwan, Ahli and the Jordanian hospitals. Ambulances could not reach the area as the roads had been “totally destroyed”, said al-Ghoul.
Meanwhile, the Hamas-run health ministry said more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war between the militant group and Israel began nearly five months ago.
The war was triggered by an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also took about 250 hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has left hundreds of thousands displaced, with nearly 1.5 million people now packed in Rafah.
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