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‘Another Flour Massacre’: IDF Reportedly Kills 20 Waiting for Aid in Northern Gaza

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Palestinians receive humanitarian aid supplies brought by trucks to Gaza City on March 13, 2024. (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Our governments did nothing to hold Israel accountable last time it attacked desperate hungry people seeking aid in Gaza,” said one aid campaigner. “So why wouldn’t it do the exact same thing again?”

Gaza health officials said Thursday that Israeli forces killed at least 20 people and injured over 150 more as they waited for humanitarian aid in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave, where deliveries of food, medicine, and other necessities have become virtually impossible due to Israel’s persistent obstruction and attacks.

Mohammed Ghurab, the director of emergency services at a hospital in the area, told AFP that there were “direct shots by the occupation forces” at people waiting for a truck carrying food. Northern Gaza is in the grip of famine-like conditions, and desperate people there have resorted to eating weeds and livestock feed amid Israel’s suffocating blockade.

Dozens of people, including children, have died of starvation and dehydration in northern Gaza in recent weeks.

Thursday’s attack took place at the Kuwaiti Roundabout in Gaza City, according to the territory’s health ministry, which said nearby hospitals were “unable to deal with” the influx of wounded patients.

Horrific video footage posted to social media shows bloody bodies lying motionless amid debris. Middle East Eye reported that “a truck transporting aid into Gaza” later “collided with a vehicle carrying victims” of Thursday’s attack to a hospital.

“Eyewitnesses said the area was struck by what they said sounded like tank or artillery fire,” CNN reported. “The incident at the Kuwaiti Roundabout followed earlier violence at the same site on Wednesday, where large crowds were waiting for a food distribution. At least seven people were killed and 86 others injured after Israeli troops opened fire.”

A day earlier, Israel allowed an aid convoy to enter Gaza’s north directly through an Israeli border crossing for the first time since the Hamas-led October 7 attack.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1768379577418600694 [Video on X appears unavailable]

Ziad Saeed Madoukh, who was shot in the foot during Thursday’s attack, told the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor that Israeli forces started “heavily firing live ammunition towards the crowd of civilians as soon as aid trucks approached” the roundabout.

“Another survivor of today’s massacre, Ibrahim Al-Najjar, was shot in the hand by Israeli forces,” the rights group said. “Al-Najjar told Euro-Med Monitor’s team that he tried to get a bag of flour for his children at the Kuwait Roundabout, but that he and others were subjected to live ammunition and artillery shells despite gathering in an area previously designated as safe by Israel’s army.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) denied attacking Gazans at the aid distribution point and said it was “analyzing” the incident.

Thursday’s bloodshed drew comparisons to the February 29 attack in which Israeli forces opened fire on crowds of starving Gazans trying to get their hands on bags of flour. The attack was later dubbed the “flour massacre.”

The Israeli military claimed that most of the deaths were caused by a stampede, but testimony from witnesses and hospital officials as well as bullets found at the scene refuted that narrative.

“Our governments did nothing to hold Israel accountable last time it attacked desperate hungry people seeking aid in Gaza,” said Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians. “So why wouldn’t it do the exact same thing again?”

Prior to Thursday’s attack—described as “another flour massacre”—Gaza authorities estimated that Israeli forces had killed at least 400 people waiting for humanitarian aid deliveries. Between mid-January and the end of February, the United Nations documented at least 14 instances of Israeli forces opening fire on crowds gathered to receive humanitarian aid.

“This is something that is preventable and shouldn’t be happening,” Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Al Jazeera.

Asked Wednesday about Israel’s repeated attacks on Palestinians awaiting aid, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that “we want to see it investigated promptly, and, if appropriate, see accountability.”

“We also press them to take measures to keep it from happening again,” said Miller, who did not warn of any consequences for Israel’s military if it continues to massacre desperate civilians.

A group of senators warned earlier this week that it is a violation of U.S. law to arm a government that is obstructing the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue Reading‘Another Flour Massacre’: IDF Reportedly Kills 20 Waiting for Aid in Northern Gaza

‘Complete Madness’: Israel Blocks Food Aid as More Gaza Children Starve to Death

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Relatives of Yazan al-Kafarneh and other Palestinians pray and mourn the death of the 10-year-old Gaza boy from severe malnutrition in Rafah on March 4, 2024. (Photo: Rabie Abu Noqaira/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The starvation of children is a hallmark of genocide and a deliberate political choice by Israel, backed by the Biden administration,” said one humanitarian coordinator.

Gaza health officials said Thursday that the number of Palestinian children who have died from extreme malnutrition and dehydration amid Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide on the besieged strip has risen to at least 17, while one humanitarian group condemned the Israeli government for blocking lifesaving food and other aid from reaching starving people.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 21 people in Gaza ranging from 1 day to 72 years old have died from malnutrition and dehydration. However, the humanitarian group Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) warned that “the true death toll due to starvation is feared to be much higher as many Palestinians, particularly in northern Gaza, face famine and are almost entirely cut off from the limited humanitarian aid entering Gaza through the southern Rafah crossing.”

“It is unthinkable that in 2024, in a world that produces more than enough food for all people, that Palestinian children are starving to death.”

That’s because Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops and civilians are blocking or severely restricting the flow of aid into Gaza. Soldiers stand by while extremist Israeli civilians set up roadblocks and encampments—one replete with a children’s bouncy castle—at border crossings. Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on aid convoys and crowds of people waiting for food deliveries, including in the February 29 Flour Massacre, in which more than 800 people were killed or wounded. Israeli civilians attempting to deliver aid to Gaza—including members of the Jewish-Arab solidarity group Standing Together—have been blocked by IDF troops.

“It is unthinkable that in 2024, in a world that produces more than enough food for all people, that Palestinian children are starving to death,” said DCIP accountability program director Ayed Abu Eqtaish. “The starvation of children is a hallmark of genocide and a deliberate political choice by Israel, backed by the Biden administration.”

“It is complete madness that Israeli authorities continue to prohibit and restrict food and other lifesaving supplies to a starving population while the international community stands by,” Abu Eqtaish added.

DCIP noted that “Yazan Kafarneh, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy with cerebral palsy, died on March 4 of malnutrition and lack of healthcare.”

“Young children, people with disabilities, pregnant women, and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of malnutrition and dehydration,” DCIP warned.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said Thursday that around 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza are suffering from dehydration, malnutrition, and lack of adequate medical care. Malnourished pregnant mothers can’t feed their fetuses; Gaza’s youngest starvation fatality was reportedly just 1 day old.

United Nations, Palestinian, and humanitarian officials have called Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinians a key component of the genocide in Gaza, while limited aid airdrops by Jordan and the United States have been described as woefully inadequate and a “theater of cruelty.”

More than 13,400 children and nearly 9,000 women are among the more than 30,800 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since the October 7 attacks, according to Palestinian and U.N. officials.

In January, the International Court of Justice in The Hague found that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza and ordered the country’s government to prevent genocidal acts. South Africa, which is leading the ICJ case, says Israel is violating the court’s order, and on Wednesday asked the tribunal to order additional emergency measures to protect Gazans.

In its plea, South Africa noted that when the ICJ declined to order requested emergency measures during the 1990s Balkan wars, “approximately 7,336 Bosnians in the so-called ‘safe area’ of Srebrenica had been slaughtered in what this court retrospectively determined to have been a genocide.”

No famine has yet been declared in Gaza. However, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative has launched a review of the Gaza crisis. ICP said in December that more than 90% of Gaza’s population was experiencing severe food insecurity or worse. That was before children started dying of starvation.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue Reading‘Complete Madness’: Israel Blocks Food Aid as More Gaza Children Starve to Death

Bullets Found at Gaza Flour Massacre Site Belie Israel’s ‘Stampede’ Claim

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Injured Palestinians receive medical treatment in al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after Israeli forces open fire on starving people waiting for humanitarian aid trucks on February 29, 2024.  (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images

A preliminary investigation by Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor affirmed that bullets that killed and wounded hundreds of Palestinians waiting for food aid are the same type fired by Israeli troops’ guns.

Bullet wounds caused by the same type of large-caliber ammunition used in several Israel Defense Forces rifles and machine guns undercut Israeli officials’ dubious claim that most victims of last week’s “Flour Massacre” near Gaza City died in a stampede, one human rights monitor said Wednesday.

Gaza officials said at least 118 Palestinians were killed and 760 others injured when Israeli troops shot and shelled a large crowd of starving people waiting for food distribution in the al-Nabulsi Roundabout area south of Gaza City on February 29. Israeli officials said many or most of the victims were trampled as the large crowd of people starving due to Israel’s siege and blockade of Gaza desperately rushed aid trucks.

However, Dr. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, told reporters last Friday that more than 80% of Flour Massacre victims treated at the facility suffered gunshot wounds. A United Nations team that visited al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City found “a large number of gunshot wounds” among the 200 or so patients being treated there.

On Wednesday, the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, which is investigating the massacre, said that many victims suffered injuries from 5.56×45 mm NATO bullets, which are used in various guns carried by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops including M4 and Tavor assault rifles and IWI Negev light machine guns.

“A sample of 200 dead and injured victims revealed that they were indeed hit by this type of bullet, and that the bullets were discovered and examined at the massacre site along with shrapnel found in the bodies of the wounded and dead,” the group said.

Israel imports some of its 5.56 mm rounds from the United Kingdom, where Palestine advocates are calling for an investigation and the suspension of arms exports to the country.

Numerous Flour Massacre survivors have described how Israeli troops opened fire on them while they attempted to secure food for their starving families.

“We had been waiting for hours when we finally spotted the trucks. At that very moment, the Israeli occupation opened fire at us with gunfire and artillery shelling,” Hajj Mahmoud Daghmash toldThe Palestine Chronicle earlier this week. “Fear filled all our hearts, and people started running everywhere. We didn’t know where to hide. The screams of the wounded, women, and children were heard everywhere.”

“The occupation killed us twice,” Daghmas added. “Once when it shelled our homes, and then again by starving us.”

A group of U.N. special rapporteurs on Tuesday condemned the massacre and Israel’s policy of deliberately starving Gazans to death and attacking humanitarian aid and those delivering and receiving it.

“Israel has been intentionally starving the Palestinian people in Gaza since October 8. Now it is targeting civilians seeking humanitarian aid and humanitarian convoys,” the U.N. experts said. “Israel must end its campaign of starvation and targeting of civilians.”

On January 26, the International Court of Justice in The Hague found that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza and ordered the Israeli government to prevent genocidal acts. However, the U.N. experts asserted that “Israel is not respecting its international legal obligations, is not complying with the provisional measures of the International Court of Justice, and is committing atrocity crimes.”

“Israel systematically denies and restricts the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza by intercepting deliveries at checkpoints, bombing humanitarian convoys, and shooting at civilians seeking humanitarian assistance,” they said.

IDF troops have also stood by as extremist Israeli civilians block roads at border crossings to prevent aid from entering Gaza. At one encampment, organizers erected a children’s bouncy castle and served cotton candy, popcorn, and slushies.

Starvation and dehydration deaths have added a ghastly new dimension to a war in which at least 30,717 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed and more than 72,000 others maimed by Israeli bombs and bullets, according to Gaza officials and international human rights groups.

“Fifteen children have already died of malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, and there are fears that the figures could be higher in other hospitals,” the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Tuesday. “As the risk of famine continues to rise, all children under five—335,000—are at high risk of severe malnutrition, with serious negative impact on their development and their right to health. At least 90% of children under five are affected by one or more infectious diseases, and 70% have diarrhea.”

It’s not just small children anymore. The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that a 15-year-old died at al-Shifa Hospital and a 72-year-old man died at Kamal Adwan Hospital from malnutrition and dehydration.

“Famine in northern Gaza has reached fatal levels, especially for children, pregnant women, and patients with chronic diseases,” ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said. “Thousands of people are at risk of dying of starvation.”

Israeli assaults on humanitarian aid convoys and starving Palestinians have continued, including a Sunday attack that killed and wounded scores of people at the Kuwait Roundabout south of Gaza City.

Airdrops of food and humanitarian aid by Jordan and the United States—which also supplies Israel with the bombs being dropped on Gazans—have been decried as wholly insufficient to address the crisis.

“I don’t think the airdropping of food in the Gaza Strip should be the answer today,” Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said late last week. “The real answer is: Open the crossing and bring convoys and bring meaningful assistance into the Gaza Strip.”

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Bullets Found at Gaza Flour Massacre Site Belie Israel’s ‘Stampede’ Claim

Continue ReadingBullets Found at Gaza Flour Massacre Site Belie Israel’s ‘Stampede’ Claim

‘The Child Deaths We Feared Are Here,’ Says UNICEF

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A Palestinian child receives treatment at a private children’s hospital in Rafah that specializes in providing care to children suffering from malnutrition.
 (Photo: Mohammed Talatene/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)

The United Nations Children’s Fund said at least 10 kids in a northern Gaza hospital have died of malnutrition and dehydration—and many more are “fighting for their lives.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund said Sunday that at least 10 children have reportedly died of starvation and dehydration at a hospital in northern Gaza as Israeli forces continue to obstruct and attack aid convoys, fueling desperation across the territory.

Adele Khodr, UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said malnutrition is ravaging the Gaza Strip and warned that child deaths “are likely to rapidly increase” unless Israel ends its military assault and allows humanitarian aid to flow unimpeded.

“The child deaths we feared are here,” said Khodr. “At least ten children have reportedly died because of dehydration and malnutrition in Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip in recent days. There are likely more children fighting for their lives somewhere in one of Gaza’s few remaining hospitals, and likely even more children in the north unable to obtain care at all.”

“These tragic and horrific deaths are man-made, predictable, and entirely preventable,” Khodr added.

Nearly half of the more than 30,000 people killed by U.S.-backed Israeli forces in Gaza since October have been children, and humanitarian officials have said disease and famine could soon become bigger killers than Israel’s bombs and bullets. United Nations experts and human rights groups have accused the Israeli government of using starvation as a weapon of war, intentionally depriving Gazans of food and other necessities.

A group of U.N. officials warned last month that an “explosion in preventable child deaths” was looming.

“The sense of helplessness and despair among parents and doctors in realizing that lifesaving aid, just a few kilometers away, is being kept out of reach, must be as unbearable, but worse still are the anguished cries of those babies slowly perishing under the world’s gaze,” Khodr said Sunday. “The lives of thousands more babies and children depend on urgent action being taken now.”

Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said that “these deaths are unlawful, the result of acts by Israel authorities which engineered famine.”

“They knew the likely outcome of their actions but persisted. Over weeks and months,” Callamard added. “And all states that cut UNRWA funding, sold weapons, and supported Israel bear responsibility too.”

While virtually all of Gaza’s population is in need of food, conditions are particularly dire in the northern part of the territory. Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program, told members of the U.N. Security Council last week that “if nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza.”

With aid deliveries plummeting due to Israel’s obstruction, families have been forced to eat grass, leaves, animal feed, and scraps left behind by rats. On Saturday, the U.S. airdropped 38,000 meals into Gaza—a move that critics said would do little to slow the rapid spread of hunger across the Palestinian territory.

Melanie Ward, CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians, described conditions in Gaza as “the fastest decline in a population’s nutrition status ever recorded.”

“That means children are being starved at the fastest rate the world has ever seen,” Ward said in an appearance on CNN. “We could save them all. But we’re not being able to.”

This story has been updated to include comment from Agnes Callamard of Amnesty International.

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue Reading‘The Child Deaths We Feared Are Here,’ Says UNICEF

‘As a Human Being, I Beg’: Doctors Say Cease-Fire in Gaza Only Way to Save Countless Lives

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Trauma surgeons treat an injured man after Israeli bombardment, at the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on October 21, 2023  (Photo: Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)

Fresh demands for a major increase in humanitarian aid and an end to the bombing came as Gaza’s only cancer hospital shut down due to a lack of fuel.

As the World Health Organization warns of an “imminent public health catastrophe” in Gaza amid Israeli attacks on medical workers and infrastructure, doctors and other frontline medics said Wednesday that only an immediate cease-fire would give them a fighting chance to save countless lives.

Responding Wednesday to the shutdown of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital—Gaza’s only cancer treatment center—due to lack of fuel and damage from Israeli airstrikes, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that “no words can describe our concern for the patients who have just lost the only possibility to receive lifesaving cancer treatment or palliative care.”

Tedros added: “I urge and I plead—for full medical and fuel aid access NOW! The more we wait, the more we put these fragile lives at risk.”

The WHO chief’s plea came a day after Christian Lindmeier, a spokesperson for the Geneva-based United Nations agency, warned that “an imminent public health catastrophe… looms with the mass displacement, the overcrowding, the damage to water and sanitation infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, James Elder, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said Tuesday that “child deaths due to dehydration, particularly infant deaths due to dehydration, are a growing threat.”

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called Gaza a “graveyard” for children, more than 3,600 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombardment, with another 1,000 minors reported missing, according to Palestinian and other officials.

Israeli forces have attacked numerous hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and medical workers, including the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital and al-Hilu Hospital. The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that the bombardment that damaged al-Hilu “endangers the lives of women in the maternity wards and medical staff.”

According to an “urgent call for protecting healthcare workers in Gaza” published Tuesday in the British medical journal The Lancet, Israeli forces have attacked 57 medical facilities since launching the war on Gaza on October 7, killing 73 workers—including doctors, nurses, paramedics, and others—as of October 24. Sixteen of the medical personnel were killed while on duty.

As Israel’s bombardment of Gaza exacts a heavy toll on overwhelmed medical workers and infrastructure in the besieged strip, frontline medics like Dr. Noureddein al-Khateeb—a 38-year-old resident doctor in the emergency department at the Nasser Medical Center in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis—say they are living “in a constant state of threat and fear.”

“It’s constant fear on top of the exhaustion we’re experiencing,” al-Khateeb toldThe New Humanitarian on Wednesday. “But one shouldn’t think of that too much. I can’t. If I do, I won’t get any work done.”

Al-Khateeb added that “we’re also afraid for our families’ safety, but what can we do?”

Dr. Mohamed Abu Mousa, a radiologist at Nasser, said one of the few trips he’s made outside the hospital since Israeli bombardment began was to bury his 7-year-old son after he was killed in an October 15 Israeli airstrike on their family home.

“We don’t have the luxury of pausing to grieve,” he told The New Humanitarian. “The heartache is immense, but the wounded are endless. We have to keep going.”

Conditions are dire inside Gaza’s hospitals, which are running out of or low on fuel, medicines, equipment, and other essential services and supplies.

“We’re operating on children without anesthetics,” Léo Cans, who heads the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mission in Palestine, toldCNN Tuesday. “We don’t have morphine for them.”

On Wednesday, MSF international president Dr. Christos Christou said in a video published on social media that “we’ve seen and heard the stories of the hell being unleashed on Gaza” as “helpless people are being subjected to horrific bombing” and “families have nowhere to run or hide.”

Christou continued:

So many people need help. What medical staff can do is just a drop in the ocean compared to the immense needs. Our teams working in Gaza are exhausted and terrified. Our staff tell us that pregnant women can’t get to hospitals to deliver. People are stuck under the rubble of shelled-out buildings. Children are having limbs amputated while lying on the floor.

“An immediate cease-fire is the only way the people of Gaza can find safety and the essential aid they urgently need,” Christou asserted. “The bombing, the all-out assault, needs to stop now… As a human being, I beg—stop the bombing and allow people in Gaza to live.”

The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday afternoon that at least 8,796 Palestinians—including nearly 2,300 women and over 3,600 children—have been killed in Israeli attacks, while around 23,000 other people have been injured.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common

Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue Reading‘As a Human Being, I Beg’: Doctors Say Cease-Fire in Gaza Only Way to Save Countless Lives