Five Palestinians died Saturday morning, including three who died from gunfire, during a food distribution that turned into chaos in the besieged Gaza Strip threatened by famine.
Nearly six months after the start of the war, triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel, the Israeli army has carried out new raids on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 82 people in the last 24 hours, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
In a sign of a desperate humanitarian situation, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported five deaths, three having succumbed to gunfire, and 30 injured on Saturday at dawn in Gaza City, following a huge stampede during a distribution of food aid, at the Kuwait roundabout.
Shooting amid chaos
Videos filmed by AFP show trucks advancing in the dark, amid rubbish fires, while gunfire rings out all around, on this roundabout, the scene of previous similar incidents in recent weeks.
According to testimonies, members of “popular protection committees”, responsible for supervising the distribution, fired into the air, injuring several people, while the trucks ran over others. At the same time, Israeli tanks positioned a few hundred meters away were firing.
The majority of the 2.4 million inhabitants are threatened with famine, UN agencies have been warning for weeks. Strictly controlled by Israel, humanitarian aid enters the Palestinian territory, where Hamas took power in 2007.