LAST UPDATE | 15 Mar
GAZA’S HEALTH MINISTRY has said that at least 20 people were killed and 155 people wounded by Israeli fire while waiting to receive desperately needed aid in the besieged territory.
The health ministry accused Israeli troops of opening fire from “tanks and helicopters” as Palestinians gathered at a roundabout in Gaza City in the north, revising upward an initial toll of 11 killed and 100 wounded.
Mohammed Ghurab, director of emergency services at a hospital in northern Gaza, told AFP there were “direct shots by the occupation forces” on people waiting for a food truck.
An AFP journalist on the scene saw several bodies and people who had been shot.
The Israeli military denied it had opened fire on the crowd.
“Press reports that Israeli forces attacked dozens of Gazans at an aid distribution point are erroneous,” it said in a brief statement, adding that it was “analyzing the incident seriously”.
With the United Nations warning of a looming famine in Gaza, besieged by Israel after the 7 October attack by Hamas militants, a Spanish aid ship sailed closer to the Gaza coast opening a maritime corridor from Cyprus.
Efforts to get food and other aid into the territory have grown, including by air and sea, but fighting rages on after mediators failed to reach a truce for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The humanitarian emergency has seen some countries use airdrops and sea routes for aid supplies because of limited land access to Gaza via Jordan, Israel and Egypt.
The first aid vessel heading to the besieged Gaza Strip via a new maritime corridor was visible today off the coast of the war-ravaged territory.
The Spanish aid vessel Open Arms, towing about 200 tonnes of food supplied by the US NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK), left Cyprus three days ago.
Ship-tracking websites today showed the Open Arms roughly five kilometres off the coast of northern Gaza.
A handful of civilians gathered on the rubble-strewn coast on Friday to watch the vessel, though it was unclear when it would actually reach shore.
Open Arms is a partner of the United States charity World Central Kitchen, which has a team in Gaza building a jetty onto which the cargo can be unloaded.
A WCK president Erin Gore said they hoped to unload about 300,000 meals as soon as possible.
“We all know it’s not enough… that’s why we have to open this corridor with a continuous flow of boats,” Gore said.
Cyprus has said a second, bigger vessel was being readied for the maritime aid corridor, which will be complemented by a temporary pier to be built off Gaza by US troops.
However, in a joint statement, 25 organisations – including Amnesty International and Oxfam – said the air and sea missions are “no alternative” to land deliveries.
“States cannot hide behind airdrops and efforts to open a maritime corridor to create the illusion that they are doing enough to support the needs in Gaza,” the statement read.
“Their primary responsibility is to prevent atrocity crimes from unfolding and apply effective political pressure to end the relentless bombardment and the restrictions which prevent the safe delivery of humanitarian aid.”
Dire shortages have left many scrambling for scraps of aid, including Mokhles al-Masry, a displaced 27-year-old who was among many Palestinians in northern Gaza scanning the skies for signs of an aid drop.
“There is no food, nothing to feed our children. We can’t even find a bottle of baby milk. We’ve been wandering around since early morning, hoping that a plane would drop parachutes,” he said.
Amnesty’s secretary-general, Agnes Callamard, said the decision to build the pier suggested that the international community seemed to accept that the conflict would drag on.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected international pressure and doubled down on his pledge to launch a ground assault on Rafah in the south, where most of Gaza’s population of 2.4 million has sought refuge.
“I will continue to repel the pressures and we will enter Rafah… and bring complete victory to the people of Israel,” Netanyahu said during a visit to a field intelligence base.
Around 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt in and around Rafah.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said this week a “significant” number of them would need to be moved “to a humanitarian island that we will create with the international community”.
Yesterday, the leader of the US Senate called for Israel to hold new elections, the most significant criticism yet by a senior American official of Netanyahu’s handling of the conflict in Gaza.
Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking elected Jewish American in the US’ history, made the remarks amid increased pressure from President Joe Biden over the growing death toll in Gaza.
“There needs to be a fresh debate about the future of Israel after October 7,” said Schumer, the head of the Senate’s Democratic majority.
“As a democracy, Israel has the right to choose its own leaders, and we should let the chips fall where they may. But the important thing is that Israelis are given a choice,” he said, without suggesting a timeline for a vote.
“The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7. The world has changed radically since then and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past,” Schumer said.
“Nobody expects Prime Minister Netanyahu to do the things that must be done to break the cycle of violence, preserve Israel’s credibility on the world stage, and work towards a two-state solution.”
Hamas’s 7 October attack resulted in about 1,160 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Israel has carried out a relentless campaign of bombardment and ground operations in Gaza in retaliation, killing at least 31,341 people, most of them civilians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Hamas militants also seized about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes about 130 of the captives remain in Gaza and that 32 are dead.
In a sign of mounting US exasperation with Netanyahu, US Senate leader Chuck Schumer called for a snap election in Israel, describing the veteran hawk as one of several “major obstacles” to a two-state solution and peace.
Washington and other powers have called for a reformed Palestinian Authority to take charge of all Palestinian territories after the conflict.
The White House welcomed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s appointment of Mohammed Mustafa, a long-trusted adviser on economic affairs, as prime minister three weeks after his predecessor resigned.
In Jerusalem, thousands of security force personnel were deployed on Friday before the first major prayer services since the start of Ramadan.
US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators failed to broker a new truce in time for Ramadan but Netanyahu said Thursday there was now “Qatari pressure on Hamas”, who he said was “clinging to unacceptable demands”.
“As of this moment, there has been no real response from Hamas,” he told representatives of hostages’ families.
The conflict has resulted in severe shortages of medical supplies across devastated Gaza, with only a fraction of hospitals partially functioning.
World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said aid had been delivered to Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza, which he said was “struggling with water, sanitation, hygiene and waste management”.
With reporting by © AFP 2024
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