Israel used tanks, snipers to fire at Gazan crowd seeking food aid!!
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World Food Programme photo.
Deir al-Balah: The UN food agency accused Israel of using tanks, snipers and other weapons to fire on a crowd of Palestinians seeking food aid, in what the territory's Health Ministry said was one of the deadliest days for aid-seekers in over 21 months of war, the Associated Press reported.
The World Food Programme, in a statement on Sunday, condemned the violence that erupted in northern Gaza as Palestinians tried to reach a convoy of trucks carrying food. The Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 80 people were killed in the incident.
The Israeli military has said it fired warning shots “to remove an immediate threat,” but has questioned the death toll reported by the Palestinians.
The accusation by a major aid agency that has had generally good working relations with Israel builds on descriptions by witnesses and others, who also said Israel opened fire on the crowd.
The bloodshed surrounding aid access highlights the increasingly precarious situation for people in Gaza who have been desperately seeking out food and other assistance, as the war that has roiled the region shows no signs of ending.
Israel and Hamas are still engaged in ceasefire talks, but there appears to be no breakthrough, and it's not clear whether any truce would bring the war to a lasting halt.
As the talks proceed, the death toll in the war-ravaged territory has climbed to more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Its count doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says more than half of the dead are women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas government, but the UN and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
Israel has meanwhile widened its evacuation orders for the territory to include an area that has been somewhat less hard-hit than others, indicating a new battleground may be opening up and squeezing Palestinians into ever tinier stretches of Gaza.
