World leaders have called for an investigation and a ceasefire nearly five months into the Gaza war after dozens of desperate Palestinians were killed rushing an aid convoy, reports BSS.
Vowing to "do more" to address the worsening humanitarian situation, President Joe Biden said Friday that the United States would start delivering relief supplies into Gaza via air drops -- as some of its allies have already -- in a bid to get aid into hard-to-reach areas.
Israeli troops opened fire as Palestinian civilians scrambled for food supplies during a chaotic melee on Thursday that the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said killed more than 100 people in Gaza City.
The deaths came after a World Food Programme official had warned: "If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza."
The Israeli military said a "stampede" occurred when thousands of Gazans surrounded the convoy of 38 aid trucks, leading to dozens of deaths and injuries, including some who were run over.
An Israeli source acknowledged troops had opened fire on the crowd, believing it "posed a threat".
Gaza's health ministry called it a "massacre", and said 115 people were killed and more than 750 wounded.
A UN team that visited some of the wounded in Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital on Friday saw a "large number of gunshot wounds", UN chief Antonio Guterres's spokesman said.
The hospital received 70 of the dead and treated more than 700 wounded, of whom around 200 were still there during the team's visit, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
"I'm not aware that our team examined the bodies of people who were killed. My understanding from what they saw in terms of the patients who were alive getting treatments is that there was a large number of gunshot wounds," he said.
The aid convoy deaths helped push the number of Palestinian war dead in Gaza to 30,228, mostly women and children, according to the latest toll from the territory's health ministry.
The war began on October 7 with an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, Israeli figures show.
Israel's military says 242 soldiers have died in Gaza since ground operations began in late October.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
