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flour massacre
Amnesty Implores Israel to Stop 'Starvation of Civilians as a Method of War'
The plea came amid Israel's killing of desperate, starving Palestinians trying to secure food and other lifesaving humanitarian aid.
Jun 02, 2025
As Israeli forces continued to kill and wound desperate, starving Palestinians at humanitarian aid distribution points in the Gaza Strip, Amnesty International on Monday implored Israel to stop weaponizing starvation and called on the world's nations to "take positive action to end the genocide," including to "stop arming Israel and pressure it to unconditionally lift its cruel blockade" on the embattled enclave.
"The horrific incident in Rafah yesterday in which Israeli forces shot at starved Palestinians attempting to receive food near a militarized distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation demands an immediate, independent investigation," Amnesty said on social media.
Hundreds of Palestinians were reportedly killed or wounded in the attack, which Amnesty said evoked the so-called "flour massacres" of February and March 2024.
"As the occupying power, Israel is obligated under international law to ensure provision of essential supplies to the occupied population."
As was the case following Israeli forces' killing of at least 118 Palestinians and wounding of 760 others during the February 29, 2024 massacre of aid-seeking people, Israel has denied responsibility for Sunday's attack in Rafah. Bullet wounds caused by the same type of large-caliber ammunition used in several Israel Defense Force (IDF)-issued rifles and machine guns undercut Israeli officials' dubious claim that most flour massacre victims died in a "stampede."
On Monday, IDF troops reportedly opened fire on Palestinians gathered to receive aid near Rafah, killing at least three people and wounding 35 others.
The Palestine Chronicle reported Monday that "at least 52 Palestinians have been killed and over 300 wounded in Israeli attacks on or near" aid distribution points since May 27.
"Aid distribution must be conducted through safe, dignified, and effective means, managed by professional humanitarian workers, not
security contractors," Amnesty stressed. "As the occupying power, Israel is obligated under international law to ensure provision of essential supplies to the occupied population."
Last year, the International Court of Justice—which is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel—found that Israel's ongoing occupation of Palestine, including the Gaza Strip, is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible.
"The international community, notably led by the [United States], has permitted this appalling humanitarian catastrophe and genocide to unfold for far too long," Amnesty said Monday. "The use of starvation of civilians as a method of war is a war crime that the global community must urgently put an end to."
The U.S. under both former President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump has approved tens of billions of dollars in armed aid for Israel and has provided diplomatic cover, such as United Nations Security Council vetoes and pressure on nations to eschew recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Amnesty added that nations must act to pressure Israel into ending its onslaught and blockade of Gaza, which has been blamed for fueling at least hundreds of deaths from malnutrition and lack of medical care. Overall, Gaza officials say that Israel's nearly 20-month bombing, invasion, and siege of Gaza have left more than 192,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing in the strip and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
IDF attacks reportedly killed more than 50 Palestinians since dawn Monday, with northern Gaza's
only functioning kidney dialysis center among the locations targeted for destruction.
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As US Aid Shipments Begin, Gaza Pier Denounced as 'PR Move'
"It's completely absurd," said one humanitarian worker. "The solution to the problem here is obvious."
May 17, 2024
As humanitarian shipments began trickling into Gaza via a U.S.-built temporary floating pier, Palestinians and aid workers on Friday renewed criticism of what they called an expensive and largely ineffectual publicity stunt that is no substitute for a cease-fire and opening of more land crossings into the besieged coastal enclave.
U.S. Army Central Command said that "trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore" at around 9:00 am local time Friday as part of "an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor."
The $320 million Trident Pier—which consists of a floating offshore barge and 1,800-foot causeway to the shore—is expected to eventually accommodate up to 150 trucks per day. According to United Nations agencies, an average of 200 trucks entered Gaza each day last month, far fewer than the prewar daily mean of more than 500 truckloads that U.S. and U.N. officials say are required to meet the needs of a population facing critical shortages of food, water, medicine, and other lifesaving supplies.
"We don't want ships. We want the border crossing to open for people to come and go. We want safety."
However, as faminegrips northern Gaza—with malnutrition and dehydration killing dozens of people, mostly children—and at least hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians starve, Israel has been accused of blocking aid from those who desperately need it and using starvation as a weapon of war.
"We don't want ships. We want the border crossing to open for people to come and go. We want safety. We want official borders," Hassan Abu Al-Kass, a forcibly displaced Palestinian man, told The New York Times on Thursday.
Al-Kass compared the pier to the humanitarian aid airdropped by U.S. and other troops over Gaza, whose officials
say that more than 20 people have been killed by the parachuting parcels, either by crushing or drowning while trying to reach offshore drops.
"Those planes, as well, that they bring here with the parachutes, and they throw food at us like dogs, like beggars, that does not work," he said. "It falls on houses. It falls on people. It brings us problems."
One unnamed humanitarian aid worker
told U.S. investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill: "It's completely absurd. The solution to the problem here is obvious and we need to end the occupation... Once the siege is lifted, humanitarian aid can roll in. A pier is a PR move."
Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said Thursday that "to stave off the horrors of famine, we must use the fastest and most obvious route to reach the people of Gaza—and for that, we need access by land now."
Washington Post columnist Ishaan Tharoor noted on social media Thursday that "no major humanitarian organization has asked for this pier, and most see it as a costly distraction that will do little to make a dent in meeting Gaza's overwhelming humanitarian needs."
"For that," he added, "you need a cease-fire and open border crossings and less military obstruction."
According to a report published last month, officials at the United States Agency for International Development concluded in a confidential memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel is violating a White House directive by blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Critics pointed to the leaked memo as more evidence that the Biden administration is breaking the law by supporting Israel's assault on Gaza—which Palestinian and international officials say has killed, wounded, or left missing more than 125,000 people—with arms and diplomatic cover.
Parties to the South African-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, as well as human rights groups, accuse Israel of flouting the ICJ's January 26 preliminary ruling ordering the Israeli government to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and ensure immediate delivery of humanitarian aid. Israel rejects charges of genocide and blocking aid.
Hundreds of U.N. and other aid workers—overwhelmingly Palestinians—have also been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7. Israeli troops have been accused of deliberately attacking both humanitarian workers and Palestinians trying to receive aid, including in the February 29 "Flour Massacre," in which nearly 900 starving Gazans were killed or wounded while waiting for food distribution south of Gaza City.
Critics have slammed U.S. President Joe Biden for offering token aid to Gazans with one hand while lavishing Israel with billions of dollars of weaponry used to kill Palestinians with the other.
Earlier this month, Biden said he would stop sending bombs, artillery shells, and other arms to Israel in the event of a major invasion of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians forcibly displaced from other parts of the embattled Gaza Strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents.
However, as Israeli air and ground attacks pound the southern city, killing civilians including 22 members of one family in a single strike, Biden—who previously implored Israel to stop its "indiscriminate bombing" of Palestinian noncombatants—informed Congress this week that his administration will soon send another $1 billion in arms and ammunition, including tank and mortar rounds, to the Israel Defense Forces.
This, despite the Biden administration last week
acknowledging "reasonable" evidence that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in the commission of war crimes in Gaza, with the caveat that "we are not able to reach definitive conclusions" on the matter.
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12 Palestinians Drown Trying to Retrieve Airdropped Gaza Aid From Sea
One campaigner called the incident "another deadly example of why airdrops are not the answer to famine in Gaza."
Mar 26, 2024
Human rights defenders on Tuesday pointed to the drowning deaths of 12 Palestinians trying to retrieve humanitarian aid parcels airdropped off the Gaza shore as yet another reason why Israel must stop blocking aid from entering the embattled strip by land.
Video published on social media shows Palestinians running toward the Mediterranean Sea in Beit Lahia as aid parcels parachute downward. Eyewitness Abu Mohammad told CNN that the people who drowned "don't know how to swim."
"There were strong currents and all the parachutes fell in the water," Mohammad said. "People want to eat and are hungry. I haven't been able to receive anything."
Ramy Abdu, chair of the Geneva-based group Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, said that some of the victims died after becoming entangled in parachute ropes.
BREAKING| 9 Palestinians drowned and 5 others missing in the Sea of Gaza while trying to get humanitarian airdrop aid due to falling into the sea. pic.twitter.com/tSPpbrKsTg
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) March 26, 2024
According to the U.S. military—which along with Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Singapore has been airdropping aid into Gaza—parachute malfunctions caused three of the 80 parcels dropped to land in the sea. The Pentagon did not say which country carried out the drop.
Earlier this month, five children were crushed to death and numerous other Palestinians were injured by U.S.-airdropped parcels on which the parachutes apparently malfunctioned.
The airdrops come amid widespread and increasingly deadly starvation in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been accused of using hunger as a weapon of war. Last month, Michael Fakhri, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, called Israel's forced starvation of Gazans part of "a situation of genocide" in the besieged enclave, where more than 114,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7 and around 2 million people out of a population of 2.3 million have been forcibly displaced.
While Israel claims there are no limits on aid entering Gaza by land, Israeli officials said Monday that United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East trucks would be blocked from entering northern Gaza. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked aid convoys and their police escorts, forcing UNRWA to suspend humanitarian deliveries.
Israeli forces have also on several occasions attacked starving Palestinians as they desperately attempt to get food for their families, including in the February 29 "
Flour Massacre" that left more than 870 Gazans dead or wounded.
Also blocking humanitarian aid from reaching starving Palestinians are Israeli civilians who have camped at border crossings to prevent convoys from entering Gaza. Last month, right-wing extremists set up a giant inflatable children's bouncy castle where aid trucks are meant to pass through the Kerem Shalom border crossing in an effort to lend a festive atmosphere to the action.
Medical Aid for Palestinians, a London-based humanitarian group, said Tuesday that "airdrops will not end famine and are a dangerous proposed 'solution.'"
Palestinians in Gaza expressed similar sentiments.
"We call for the opening of the crossings in a proper fashion," Mohammad told CNN, "but these humiliating methods are not acceptable."
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The Media’s Linguistic Gymnastics Surrounding Israel’s Forced Starvation of Gaza
With headlines layered in verbal opacity, the response to the flour massacre prompted yet another egregious moment in the Western press’ facilitation of Israel’s continuing genocide in Gaza.
Mar 24, 2024
Over 100 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded on February 29, when Israeli snipers opened fire on people approaching a convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed supplies of flour. The attack was quickly dubbed the flour massacre.
Corporate media reporting was contentious and confused, mired in accusations and conflicting details that filled the news hole, even as media downplayed the grave conditions in Gaza created by Israel’s engineered famine. With headlines layered in verbal opacity, the massacre prompted yet another egregious moment in media’s facilitation of Israel’s continuing genocide in Gaza.
Linguistic Gymnastics
On the day of the massacre, The New York Times (2/29/24) published this contrivance:
As Hungry Gazans Crowd a Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots and a Deadly Toll
It was met with ridicule as it slid across online platforms. Assal Rad (Twitter, 3/1/24), author and research director at the National Iranian American Council, called the piece of work “a haiku to avoid saying Israel massacres Palestinians that they’re deliberately starving in Gaza.”
Another Times headline (2/29/24) read, “Deaths of Gazans Hungry for Food Prompt Fresh Calls for Cease-fire.” Nima Shirazi, co-host of the podcast Citations Needed (Twitter, 3/1/24), noted that “The New York Times just can’t bring itself to write clear headlines when Israeli war crimes are involved.” Shirazi offered this revision: “Israel Slaughters Starving People as It Continues Committing Genocide.”
Professor Jason Hickel (Twitter, 2/29/24), along with Mint Press‘s Alan MacLeod (2/29/24), flagged the use of the neologism “food aid-related deaths” when it turned up in a Guardian headline (2/29/24): “Biden Says Gaza Food Aid-Related Deaths Complicate Cease-Fire Talks.” MacLeod noted, “Virtually the entire Western media pretend they don’t know who just carried out a massacre of 100+ starving civilians.”
Media have failed to inform the U.S. public on the horrific conditions experienced by starving civilians in Gaza.
Linguistic gymnastics—a longstanding plague pervading Western media coverage of Palestine (FAIR.org, 8/22/23)—were so popular in news headlines and reporting that Caitlin Johnstone (Consortium News, 3/1/24) compiled a list of them, adding “chaotic incident” (CNN, 2/29/24) and “chaotic aid delivery turns deadly” (Washington Post, 2/29/24) to those already mentioned.
Sana Saeed, media critic for Al Jazeera, decoded the latter kind of construction for AJ+ (3/29/24), arguing that such passive language has been used “consistently to sanitize the violence that a powerful state is unleashing against civilian populations.”
As the genocide enters its sixth month, media analysts, investigative reporters, and social media users have become adept at recognizing pro-Israeli contortions and patterns of language that justify Israel’s war on Gaza. This has become an essential aspect in exposing Israel’s genocide.
‘Anarchy Rules in Gaza’
The Economist (2/29/24), under the headline, “A New Tragedy Shows Anarchy Rules in Gaza: A Shooting and Stampede Kill 122 and Injure Hundreds,” went into the worst pro-Israel spin, with reporting that seemed to blame Palestinians for their own murders. Parroting Israeli press directives, the piece claimed Palestinians were killed by “trampling” each other in their own “stampede.”
The piece was written in literary prose: “Death descended on a coastal road in Gaza,” the reporter (not present at the scene) wrote. Then “catastrophe befell an aid convoy,” as if it merely happened upon bad luck.
Then the writer made a prediction: “As with many events in the war between Israel and Hamas, the facts are destined to remain fiercely contested.” That’s likely to come true, especially when major media outlets abdicate their responsibility for evaluating claims.
Timeline of Changing Denials
Many other writers and journalists have documented the string of vacillating Israeli statements that help explain the contorted reporting. Al Jazeera reporter Willem Marx (Twitter, 3/1/24) traced a timeline of how the Israeli military changed its story over the course of the day.
The IDF began by claiming there had been trampling and pushing that led to injuries around the aid truck. Then, hungry Palestinians had “threatened their soldiers,” or “appeared in a threatening manner,” so the IDF shot at them. Later that day, Israeli officials claimed there were two separate incidents, one that involved trampling and the other that led to shooting. By the end of the day, they alleged only to have provided support to a humanitarian convoy, and that no shots were fired at all by the military.
When the BBC (3/1/24) verified that a video released by the Israeli military exhibited four unexplained breaks in the footage and was therefore invalid, the outlet still used the passive voice, referring in the headline to “Gazans Killed Around Aid Convoy.” One sentence of the detailed, confused article quoted Palestinian journalist Mahmoud Awadeyah: “Israelis purposefully fired at the men… They were trying to get near the trucks that had the flour.” Earlier, however, Awadeyah was problematized when identified “as a journalist for Al Mayadeen, a Lebanon-based news station whose broadcasts are sympathetic to groups fighting Israel.”
Independent and International Media
If we compare corporate outlets to independent media, in which reporting was based on ground sources, humanitarian actors, and aid workers, we find very different content.
Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul (2/29/24), who was at the scene of the massacre, said that “after opening fire, Israeli tanks advanced and ran over many of the dead and injured bodies. It is a massacre, on top of the starvation threatening citizens in Gaza.”
EuroMed staff (2/29/24) on the scene confirmed that the Israeli military had fired on starving Palestinians. EuroMed’s findings were summarized in a videotape by Palestinian news agency Quds News Network and posted by the Palestine Information Center (3/4/24).
Mondoweiss (3/4/24) reported details of the massacre from eyewitness accounts. One survivor recounted how an Israeli checkpoint “split the crowd in two,” preventing those who had entered the checkpoint from passing back to the northern side. Then Israeli soldiers opened fire on the crowd. International observers visited the injured survivors at al-Shifa’ Hospital, “confirming that the majority of wounds from the hundreds of injured people were due to live ammunition.”
In Context of Famine
Reporting in the alternative press also placed the massacre within the context of the rapidly increasing famine in Gaza.
The headline for the Electronic Intifada (2/29/24) read, “Palestinians Seeking Food Aid Killed as Israel Starves Gaza.” The outlet said an “engineered famine has taken hold in Gaza, with people resorting to eating wild plants with little nutritional value and animal feed to survive.”
Middle East Eye’s reporting (2/29/24) included the dire condition Palestinians are currently facing: “Much of Gaza’s population is on the brink of famine as a result of the Israeli blockade, according to the U.N. and other humanitarian organizations.”
The day of the massacre, Democracy Now! (2/29/24) opened its broadcast with a clear statement and the relevant context: “Israel Kills 104 Palestinians Waiting for Food Aid as U.N. Expert Accuses Israel of Starving Gaza.” Its first guest, U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri, said, “Every single person in Gaza is hungry.” He accused Israel of the war crime of intentional starvation. He emphasized that famine in the modern context is a human-made catastrophe:
At this point I’m running out of words to be able to describe the horror of what’s happening and how vile the actions have been by Israel against the Palestinian civilians.
Common Dreams (3/3/24) reported on Israel’s obstruction of aid convoys, and cited UNICEF on the deaths of children who
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… People are hungry, exhausted, and traumatized. Many are clinging to life.
It concluded, “These tragic and horrific deaths are man-made, predictable, and entirely preventable.”
In the days before the massacre, numerous outlets had been documenting the growing famine looming over Gaza. This is the material independent media made use of for contextualizing the massacre.
The New York Times, on the other hand, put the massacre into an entirely different context. A piece (3/2/24) headlined “Disastrous Convey Was Part of New Israeli Effort for More Aid in Gaza,” cited as confirmation “Western diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity.” It said that international aid groups “suspended operations” because of “rising lawlessness,” as well as Israel’s refusal to “greenlight aid trucks.” It blamed starving Gazans by claiming that aid convoys had been looted either by “civilians fearing starvation” or by “organized gangs.”
‘How Is This Not a Bigger Story?’
As Common Dreams and Mondoweiss reported, the flour massacre was not the first time the IDF killed starving Palestinians, and it would not be the last. As Mondoweiss (3/4/24) put it: “In less than a week, Israel has committed several massacres against the hungry. On Sunday, March 3, Israel bombed an aid convoy, killing seven people.”
Quds News Network (3/2/24) reported that Israel targeted hungry civilians again at Al Rasheed Street in northern Gaza while they were waiting for humanitarian aid. And Quds (3/4/24) reposted Al Jazeera footage that captured the moments when Israel’s military opened fire at other hungry Gazans, this time at the Al Kuwait roundabout, as they looked for food aid.
Al Jazeera (3/6/24) continues to document the murders of Palestinians desperate for aid as they come under Israeli fire. On a longer videotape, a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch says these attacks violate ICJ orders:
The idea that these people are being killed as they scavenge for meager rations of food is just appalling, and is a reminder why there must be international immediate action to prevent further mass atrocities.
Following the Al Jazeera report, Assal Rad (Twitter, 3/6/24) expressed dismay:
Israeli attacks on Palestinians waiting for or attempting to get aid have repeatedly happened this week, yet there has been no media coverage since the massacre that killed over 100 people. Israel is attacking civilians it’s deliberately starving. How is this not a bigger story?
Normalizing Starvation and Massacres
Sana Saeed (Twitter, 3/4/24) observed:
So just to be clear: Much like how Israel normalized attacking and destroying hospitals, and it was accepted by the international community, Israel is now normalizing shooting and killing the people it is starving as they seek food.
Media have failed to inform the U.S. public on the horrific conditions experienced by starving civilians in Gaza. They blamed Palestinians for their own deaths, covering for the Israeli military as it carried out a massacre. They further dehumanized Palestinians by characterizing starving people as an unruly mob who trampled one another.
To paraphrase Patrick Lawrence (Floutist, 11/16/23) on the distortion of language in defense of Israel’s violence against Palestinians: It corrupts our public discourse, our public space, and altogether our ability to think clearly. This corruption is as vital as U.S. bombs to the Israeli genocide against Palestine: Without these verbal distortions that justify, distract, deny, and consume corporate information spaces, the genocide could not be carried out.
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Australia Restores UNRWA Funding as Israel Kills Aid Workers, Starving Gazans
"Restoring UNRWA funding is the bare minimum," said one Australian Green senator. "The Labor government must publicly pressure Israel to allow aid into all parts of Gaza."
Mar 15, 2024
Australia said Friday that it would reinstate funding for the United Nations United Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in international financing due to unsubstantiated Israeli claims that UNRWA staff participated in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.
"The best available current advice from agencies and the Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organization," Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in Adelaide while announcing a new funding package for the agency, which works to aid Palestinians forcibly displaced during the Nakba, or "catastrophe" through which the modern state of Israel was established in 1948, as well as their descendants.
Australia is lifting the pause on funding for UNRWA following steps to strengthen the integrity of UNRWA operations. pic.twitter.com/RD5FhRH7B2
— Senator Penny Wong (@SenatorWong) March 15, 2024
In addition to restoring $6 million in UNRWA funding, Wong said Australia would contribute another $2 million to the United Nations Children's Fund and would deploy a C-17 Globemaster transport plane to assist humanitarian airdrops over Gaza.
Sen. Mehreen Faruqi of New South Wales and the Australian Greens welcomed the shift, asserting that "restoring UNRWA funding is the bare minimum" Australia should do.
"The Labor government must publicly pressure Israel to allow aid into all parts of Gaza," Faruqi stressed. "Starvation is a weapon of war, and Israel is blocking aid to reach the people of Gaza in brazen contravention of the [International Court of Justice's] ruling" ordering Israel to prevent genocidal acts.
"I hope this is the start of the Labor government breaking away from their unquestioning and immoral support for Israel," the senator added.
Simon Birmingham, leader of the center-right Liberal opposition in the Senate, said his party does not support the Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese "acting without and ahead of the United States in terms of decisions around this funding."
Following Israeli claims—reportedly extracted from Palestinian prisoners in an interrogation regime rife with torture and abuse—that 12 of the more than 13,000 UNRWA workers in Gaza were involved in the October 7 attack, Australia and nine other nations including the United States cut off funding to the largest humanitarian aid organization operating in the besieged coastal enclave.
UNRWA subsequently terminated nine employees in response to the unfounded Israeli claims, without any evidence to support their firing. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini later called the move an act of "reverse due process."
The European Union and nations including Canada and Sweden have also reinstated funding for UNRWA, which Lazzarini said "is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations." The agency has been struggling to provide shelter, aid, and other lifesaving services to Gazans facing not only Israeli bombs and bullets but also a genocidal siege and blockade that are starving Palestinians to death.
Australia's decision came as Israeli attacks on aid convoys, food distribution centers, and desperate, starving Palestinians in Gaza continued. On Thursday, Israeli forces killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 150 others as they awaited delivery of humanitarian aid at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City. The previous day, a UNRWA staffer was among five people killed and more than 20 wounded in an attack on a food distribution center in Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city. Israeli officials claimed the slain man was a Hamas commander.
According to UNRWA, at least 165 of the agency's staff members have been killed since October 7. Over 150 UNRWA facilities have been attacked by Israeli forces, while more than 400 Palestinians have been slain while seeking shelter under the United Nations flag.
UNRWA also says its workers have been tortured by Israeli troops trying to force them to falsely confess to participating in the October 7 attacks.
Gaza officials said earlier this week that at least 400 Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid have been killed by Israeli forces since the February 29 "Flour Massacre," in which at least 118 people were killed and more than 760 others wounded while waiting for an aid convoy in Gaza City.
More than 112,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Gaza since October 7, including people missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of the strip's hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. The majority of the dead are women and children. Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Disease and starvation are rampant, and a growing number of Palestinians—mostly children but also elders and other vulnerable people—are starving to death.
After 161 days of near-constant slaughter, there is still no cease-fire in sight.
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'Another Flour Massacre': IDF Reportedly Kills 20 Waiting for Aid in Northern Gaza
"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?"
Mar 15, 2024
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.
Breaking: ANOTHER FLOUR MASSACRE AS ISRAELI DRONES, WARPLANES AND TANKS FIRE AT CIVILIANS WAITING FOR FLOUR ON TRUCKS
Dozens killed and many injured. #FlourMassacre
*NSFW pic.twitter.com/gDtMn8tpCQ
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) March 14, 2024
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.
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'Complete Madness': Israel Blocks Food Aid as More Gaza Children Starve to Death
"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.
Mar 07, 2024
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.
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Bullets Found at Gaza Flour Massacre Site Belie Israel's 'Stampede' Claim
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.
Mar 06, 2024
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 5.56x45 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 told The 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.
Breaking | According to the spokesperson for the Gaza Health Ministry, Israeli forces have perpetrated another devastating massacre at the Kuwaiti Roundabout in Gaza today. This has led to the killing of dozens of starving Gazans awaiting aid convoys. pic.twitter.com/BkaBEUMdud
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) March 3, 2024
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."
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