Israeli troops reportedly opened fire with heavy machine guns at people waiting for trucks laden with humanitarian assistance for distribution….reports Asian Lite News
United Nations, UAE and many other countries have expressed strong condemnation for the devastating incident at a food aid site in Gaza, where the Gaza health ministry said over 100 lives were lost.
On the day Gaza’s Health Ministry announced that the death toll crossed the 30,000 mark since Israel’s attacks began on October 8, 104 people were killed and more than 700 injured in the incidents around a food convoy in the Gaza City area, according to the Palestine news agency, Wafa.
The agency said that according to medical sources, Israeli troops had opened fire with heavy machine guns at people waiting for trucks laden with humanitarian assistance for distribution.
“The Secretary-General condemns the incident today in northern Gaza in which more than a hundred people were reportedly killed or injured while seeking life-saving aid,” Antonio Guterres’ Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
He added that Guterres “is appalled by the tragic human toll of the conflict in Gaza, in which more than 30,000 people have now reportedly been killed and more than 70,000 injured. Tragically, an unknown number of people lie under rubble”.
His statement did not name Israel in the attack, and Dujarric explained to reporters that the UN did not as yet have direct knowledge of what happened, but he said that acts of violence caused the incident.
Meanwhile, the UAE strongly condemned the Israeli occupation forces targeting of thousands of Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip who were awaiting the arrival of humanitarian and relief aid, which resulted in the killing of dozens, and the injury of hundreds of innocent civilians.
The UAE called for an independent and transparent investigation, and the punishment of those responsible, and warned of a catastrophic and dangerous humanitarian situation.
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), expressed its deep concern over the exacerbating humanitarian catastrophe in the Strip that threatens further loss of innocent civilian lives. The Ministry stressed that the immediate priority is to end the escalation of military operations and achieve an immediate ceasefire.
The Ministry reaffirmed the UAE’s position that calls for the protection of innocent civilians, and the facilitation of immediate, safe, sustainable, and unhindered delivery of relief and humanitarian aid. The Ministry further stressed the importance of the full and urgent implementation of Security Council Resolutions 2712 and 2720.
The Ministry warned against further exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, and underlined the importance of avoiding further loss of life, and fuelling the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, while preventing regional spill-over that risks further violence, tension, and instability.
The Ministry called on the international community to advance all efforts to achieve a comprehensive and just peace, based on a two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, UN Human Rights High Commissioner Volker Turk called the killings in Gaza, “carnage”.
“There appear to be no bounds to — no words to capture — the horrors that are unfolding before our eyes in Gaza,” he said in Geneva at a meeting on Occupied Palestine Territories.
While denouncing the 10/7 Hamas attack on Israel as “profoundly traumatising and totally unjustifiable,” he also condemned “the brutality of the Israeli response” which resulted in “the unprecedented level of killing and maiming of civilians in Gaza, including UN staff and journalists”.
Turk said, “Since early October, over 100,000 people have been killed or wounded. Let me repeat that: about one in every 20 children, women, and men, are now dead or wounded.”
Israel said that its forces opened fire on a crowd that advanced on them menacingly, but asserted that dozens were killed in a melee by being trampled or run over by trucks.
The latest mass killings has raised the tension in region with Saudi Arabia and Jordan issuing strong condemnations.
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