Gaza’s health ministry, run by Hamas, said on Friday that Israeli fire had killed 20 people and wounded 155 who were waiting for desperately needed aid in the besieged territory, but Israel said the reports were “erroneous”.
With the United Nations warning of a looming famine in Gaza, besieged by Israel after an attack by Hamas militants on October 7, a Spanish aid ship sailed closer to Gaza’s coast, opening a sea corridor from Cyprus.
Efforts to get food and other aid into Gaza have increased, including by air and sea, but fighting has raged after mediators failed to reach a ceasefire for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Gaza’s health ministry accused Israeli soldiers of opening fire from “tanks and helicopters” as Palestinians gathered at a roundabout in northern Gaza City, revising the initial toll of 11 killed and 100 wounded upwards.
Mohammed Ghurab, Director of Emergency Services at a hospital in northern Gaza, told AFP that occupation forces fired “direct shots” at people waiting for a food truck.
An AFP journalist at the scene saw several bodies and people who had been shot.
The Israeli military denied opening fire on the crowd.
“Press reports that Israeli forces attacked dozens of Gazans at an aid distribution site are incorrect,” it said in a brief statement, adding that it was “seriously analyzing the incident.”
“No Alternative” –
The humanitarian emergency has forced some countries to use airdrops and sea routes for aid deliveries due to limited access to Gaza via Jordan, Israel and Egypt.
The Spanish aid ship Open Arms, which was towing about 200 tonnes of food supplied by the US-based NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK), was about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Gaza, the MarineTraffic website showed, after leaving Cyprus three days earlier.
The WCK team in Gaza built a floating jetty to unload cargo destined for people in northern Gaza. The group’s president, Erin Gore, said they hope to unload about 300,000 meals as soon as possible.
“We all know that’s not enough … that’s why we have to open this corridor with a continuous flow of ships,” Gore said.
Cyprus said a second, larger vessel was being prepared for the maritime aid corridor, to be complemented by a temporary jetty to be built by US troops off Gaza.
But air and sea missions are “no alternative” to ground deliveries, 25 organizations including Amnesty International and Oxfam said in a statement.
The dire shortages have left many scrambling for scraps of aid, including Mokhles al-Masry, a displaced 27-year-old who was one of many Palestinians in northern Gaza scanning the skies for signs of aid drops.
“There’s 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 the plane will drop parachutes,” he said.
Amnesty Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said the decision to build the jetty indicated that the international community appeared to accept that the war would drag on.
Netanyahu doubled down –
Defying international pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on his pledge to launch a ground assault on Rafah in the south, where most of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have sought refuge.
“I will continue to repel the pressures and we will enter Rafah … and bring total victory to the Israeli people,” Netanyahu said during a visit to a field intelligence base.
Approximately 1.5 million Palestinians sought refuge along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt in and around Rafah.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said this week that a “significant” number of them would have to be moved “to a humanitarian island that we will create with the international community”.
