Death Toll in Gaza has passed 30,000
Gazan Aid and Food Distribution in a Democratic War: Israel’s Most High-Talled Military Occupation Since the Israelis Left the Gaza Strip
Aid groups say it has become almost impossible to deliver aid in most of the Gaza Strip because of ongoing hostilities, disorganized public order and the inability to coordinate with the Israeli military. The U.N. says a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians face starvation; around 80% have fled their homes.
The World Food Program said earlier this month that it was pausing deliveries to the north because of the growing chaos, after desperate Palestinians emptied a convoy while it was en route.
While many Palestinians fled the invasion in the north of the enclave, a few hundred thousand are believed to remain in the largely devastated and isolated region. Trucks carrying food reached northern Gaza this week, the first major aid delivery there in a month, officials said.
Meanwhile, U.N. officials have warned of further mass casualties if Israel follows through on vows to attack the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has taken refuge. They also say a Rafah offensive could decimate what remains of aid operations.
Violence has gone up across the West Bank. An attacker shot and killed two Israelis at a gas station in the settlement of Eli on Thursday, according to the Israeli military. The military said that the attacker was dead.
More than 20,000 people have died in Israel’s military offensive against Hamas in Gaza, making it the highest death toll for any previous Arab conflict with Israel. Many experts think that the official toll is likely an undercount, because it’s difficult to count deaths in a collapsing medical system and still many people are believed to be under rubble.
The Gazan health ministry does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Many international observers have said they believe that the ministry’s overall toll is reliable, while the proportion of Hamas-affiliated fighters among those killed remains unclear.
Dr. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of the Al-Awda Hospital, said the facility received 161 wounded patients, most of whom appeared to have been shot. He said the hospital can perform only the most essential surgeries because it is running out of fuel to power emergency generators.
The violence came more than a month after witnesses and health officials in Gaza accused Israeli troops of firing on a previous aid distribution in Gaza City, killing at least 20 people.
The Gaza Aid Convoy: A Palestinian Case Study for a Resolution of the Gaza Contagion Containment in the Oct. 7 Attack
Another man in the crowd — who gave only his first name, Ahmad, as he was being treated at a hospital for gunshot wounds to the arm and leg — said he waited for two hours before someone with a horse-drawn cart had room to take him to Shifa.
The carnage at the scene of the bloodshed left “dozens or hundreds” lying on the ground, says the head of the ambulance service. He said there wasn’t enough ambulances to take the dead and wounded to hospitals, so they were taken in donkey carts.
The increasing alarm over hunger across Gaza has fueled international calls for a cease-fire, and the U.S., Egypt and Qatar are working to secure a deal between Israel and Hamas for a pause in fighting and the release of some of the hostages Hamas took during its Oct. 7 attack.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan accused Israel of targeting civilians in the incident. They advocated for increased safe passages for aid. They urged the international community to make Israel obey international law and to reach an immediate cease-fire.
He said that when people pulled boxes of food from trucks, Israeli troops opened fire on the crowd, causing them to scatter. People went to the trucks after the shooting stopped and soldiers opened fire again. He was shot in the leg, fell over, and a truck ran over his leg as it sped off.
Kamel Abu Nahel said that he and others went to the distribution point in the middle of the night to wait for a delivery because they had heard there would be food. “We’ve been eating animal feed for two months,” he said.
Source: Scores killed trying to get food from an aid convoy during a chaotic scene in Gaza
The Gaza War: Biden, Netanyahu, and the Israeli-Israeli Cross-Section in the Light of Israel’s First Day of Action
The violence was quickly condemned by Arab countries, and U.S. President Joe Biden expressed concern it would add to the difficulty of negotiating a cease-fire in the nearly five-month conflict.
The director general of the World Health Organization said in a social media post that most of the 30,000 deaths in Gaza were women and children.
In the last few days, the health ministry said infants have died of dehydration and malnutrition. A physician who was in Gaza in late January told CBS’s “60 Minutes” this week that people were dying “in a fully treatable situation” because of the lack of basic medical supplies.
In a televised speech, the Hamas leader said that the group was open to making a deal with Israel, but also ready to continue fighting. He called on Palestinians to march to the Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem in March, raising the prospect of fresh clashes with Israeli security forces around a site holy to both Muslims and Jews.
Israel has come under growing international pressure to stop its offensive and even President Biden expressed his frustration with the increasing death toll in Gaza. The Israeli government has said it will continue to fight in order to destroy Hamas, which staged the attack that started the war.
More than 30,000 people had been killed in the war in Gaza, the local health ministry reported on Thursday.
