At least 19 Gazans were killed and about 23 wounded in another apparently Israeli attack at the Kuwait roundabout in Gaza City, against a group of people waiting for the arrival of a humanitarian convoy. Meanwhile, the siege of the Shifa hospital continues for the sixth consecutive day.
“The tanks of the Israeli Army opened fire with their machine guns towards the hungry who were waiting for bags of flour and aid in a distant place that does not represent a threat to the occupation,” explained the Ministry of Health of Gaza, controlled by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. , about this attack whose victims were transferred to Al Ahli hospital.
The attack occurred at one of the entrances to Gaza City, where dozens of people have died in similar circumstances in recent weeks, since the “flour massacre” in which a hundred Gazans died in a chaotic distribution of food where Israeli troops opened fire.
The Israeli army denied shooting at Palestinians waiting for help. “Reports claiming that Israeli forces attacked dozens of Gazans near an aid convoy are incorrect,” the military said in a statement. According to the “first elements”, “there was no air attack against the convoy, nor shots by the (Israeli) forces against the people near the aid convoy,” the letter adds.
The Gazan government, controlled by Hamas, has reported that more than 400 Gazans have died in Israeli attacks on humanitarian convoys, aid warehouses or food deliveries.
“For the second time this week, Israeli authorities today prevented another UNRWA convoy carrying much-needed food from heading north, where people live on the brink of famine,” lamented this Saturday the Commissioner General of the Agency. UN for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.
The convoy referred to by the head of UNRWA, an agency in the crosshairs of the Israeli authorities who accuse it of links with Hamas, is the one that the people gathered at the Kuwait roundabout who were attacked were waiting for, according to Palestinian media.
“This is a man-made famine, an imminent famine that can still be avoided. Israel must allow widespread delivery of food aid to the north, through UNRWA, the largest humanitarian organization in Gaza,” stressed Lazzarini, who indicated that the last time they were able to distribute food in the north was two months ago.
While the Israeli military operation in the Shifa hospital, in Gaza City, continues for the sixth consecutive day, in which five wounded people who were being treated at that center died as a result of the siege by Israeli troops, which began on Monday, and more to the 13 intensive care patients who died in recent days due to lack of electricity and medical treatment.
The Ministry of Health also reported that 240 patients and relatives have been detained by Israeli forces and a dozen health personnel. The Israeli Army reported today that it has interrogated more than 800 suspects – it claims that at least 360 are “terrorists” with clear links to Hamas or Islamic Jihad – and killed 170 alleged combatants.
“We will end this operation only when the last terrorist is in our hands, dead or alive,” said today the commander in chief of the Israeli Army’s Southern Command, General Yaron Finkelman, who praised the success of the “bold and impressive” operation.
The Army assures that the operation is being carried out without harming civilians, patients, health workers or medical equipment and that they have evacuated the sick and wounded to a designated area within the hospital to “avoid damage”, in addition to facilitating the entry of medicines. , food and water.
“The soldiers established an exclusive area where medical equipment was brought and infrastructure was installed that allowed advanced treatment and monitoring of hospitalized patients by the on-site medical team, including more than 10,000 units of medicines, hundreds of painkillers, more than a hundred packages of bandages and dozens of advanced monitoring devices,” he said.
UN Secretary General António Guterres, visiting Egypt today, described the obstacles to the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip as a “moral outrage”, since according to Egyptian authorities more than 7,000 trucks loaded with aid are waiting. instructions from Israel to enter the Palestinian enclave.
“A long line of relief trucks blocked on one side of the gate, and the long shadow of hunger on the other side. This is beyond tragic. It is a moral outrage,” Guterres said from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing. , which connects the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula with the Strip.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded to Guterres, accusing him of having turned the UN under his command into an “anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli organization that welcomes and encourages terror.”
At least 72 Gazans have died in the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours in Israeli attacks, bringing the death toll to 32,142 since the war began on October 7, according to the latest Health count.
