Israeli forces bomb aid truck, open fire on aid seekers again – Day 148

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Israeli forces bomb aid truck, open fire on aid seekers again – Day 148
A view of a heavily damaged humanitarian aid vehicle, which has been the target of Israeli air strikes resulting in the killing of nine and dozens of injuries in Deir el-Balah (photo)

Humanitarian aid trucks and their Gazan clients continue to come under Israeli fire; first air drop of US aid reportedly completed, criticized as “PR stunt,” evidence of American “weakness”; Israeli spokesperson leans into lies about the “Flour Massacre”; Gaza children starving to death; Irish Senate takes a stand against Israel and US

By IAK staff, from reports

JUST IN – At least nine killed after Israeli air strike hits aid truck in Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera reports. This is a developing story.

ISRAEL CONTINUES TO SHOOT AT AID SEEKERS – WAFA reports: For the second time in less than 48 hours, Israeli occupation forces opened machine gunfire this evening targeting hundreds of civilians waiting for desperately needed humanitarian aid southwest of Gaza City, resulting in multiple civilian casualties. (More on the “Flour Massacre” below.)

Eyewitnesses reported that the occupation forces opened fire on a crowd of civilians waiting for the potential arrival of aid trucks near the Al-Nablusi roundabout at the Al-Rashid Street southwest of Gaza City, resulting in at least one fatality and the injury of 26 others.

UN OHCHR adds: Between mid-January and the end of February, the UN office said it had “recorded at least 14 incidents involving shooting and shelling of people gathered to receive desperately needed supplies” at the Kuwait Roundabout on Salah al-Din Street and Al Nabulsi Roundabout.

This thread on X documents some of those incidents:

REGARDING THE US AIR DROP OVER GAZA – Reuters reports: Three C-130 U.S. military planes delivered more than 38,000 meals into a territory where the United Nations says at least 576,000 people are one step away from famine conditions.

The White House has said the airdrops would be a sustained effort, and that Israel supports them.

Axios recently reported: U.S. officials admit that aid airdrops will have a limited effect since a military plane can only drop the amount of supplies equivalent to that transported by one or two trucks.

Satellite images show at least 1,000 trucks full of aid waiting at the border.

Satellite images taken on February 21 showed more than a thousand aid trucks lined up waiting to enter the Rafah land crossing in Egypt, most of them waiting inside the logistics zone being established east of the crossing.
Satellite images taken on February 21 showed more than a thousand aid trucks lined up waiting to enter the Rafah land crossing in Egypt, most of them waiting inside the logistics zone being established east of the crossing. (photo)

GLOBAL COMMENTARY ON THE AIR DROP –

  • Robert Ford, former US ambassador to Algeria and Syria, writes: “i’ve seen Israel humiliate previous US administrations, but aside from [the] murderous 1967 Israeli airstrike against US navy ship Liberty, now forcing USA to do airdrops of aid to Gaza as if USA is no better than Egypt & Jordan is Israel’s worst humiliation of USA i’ve ever seen. USA supposed to have far greater, closer relations with Israel than the relations between Israel and Jordan or Egypt. yet Washington has no more influence than Cairo or Amman.”
  • Mohamad Elmasry of the Doha Institute for Graduate studies calls the US air drops a “PR move” that is “grossly ineffective.” Elmasry says that, if Israel is convicted of genocide, the Biden administration “wants to be able to say: We told Israel not enough aid was going in and we even did these air drops – so we weren’t complicit in this genocide.”
  • The Palestinian Foreign Ministry says “The ministry sees no excuse for the behavior of the United States, who is behaving as a marginal, weak state in the face of its ally’s arrogance, tyranny and extremism, especially when it comes to delivering aid to Gaza.”
  • Electronic Intifada says, “What is being marketed as benevolent assistance amounts to humanitarian aid theater that does nothing to end the systematic and intentional campaign of starvation Israel and its American and European allies, with the complicity of regional regimes, are waging against Palestinians…The effect – whether intentional or not – is to relieve Israel and its backers of pressure to lift the total siege Tel Aviv has imposed on the coastal enclave with the clear intent of causing maximum suffering and death to as many people as possible.”
Palestinians run along a street as humanitarian aid is airdropped in Gaza City on Friday
Palestinians run along a street as humanitarian aid is airdropped in Gaza City on Friday (photo)

ON THE “FLOUR MASSACRE” (Thursday, Feb.29) – Al Jazeera reports: The spokesman for the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari, told a news conference that Israeli soldiers did not intentionally open fire on hungry Palestinians in the aid convoy massacre that left at least 118 dead and 760 injured, some in critical condition.

“This was a humanitarian operation we conducted, and the claim that we intentionally struck the convoy and intentionally harmed people is baseless,” he was quoted as saying by Times of Israel.

“We are investigating this incident, we have all the footage we need to complete an exhaustive investigation and find out the truth of the facts of this incident, and we will present the findings,” Hagari said.

NOTE: The Israeli army had previously released edited drone footage of the incident and confirmed its soldiers fired on Palestinians, but claimed most were killed in a stampede – despite overwhelming eyewitness reports of Israel shooting at the crowd, and a UN team reporting that many of those injured had gunshot wounds.
NOTE: Israel has not proven itself trustworthy in its dealings. Among Israel’s recent lies are numerous atrocity stories about the October 7th attack that have since been proven untrue (additional examples here). Previously, Israel has been caught in many lies – for example, this and this and this.
NOTE: Israeli sources, including the government itself, have a long track record of lying (for example, this and this and this.)

GAZA’S CHILDREN – Right now, children in Gaza “are being starved at the fastest rate the world has ever seen,” said Melanie Ward, CEO of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Palestine Chronicle reports: Health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said, “15 children died as a result of malnutrition and dehydration in Kamal Adwan Hospital.”

He added, “We fear for the lives of six children suffering from malnutrition and dehydration in intensive care at Kamal Adwan Hospital, as a result of the cessation of the electric generator and oxygen machines.”

For an inventory of ways Israel has defied orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and continued to pursue genocide, read (Middle East Eye): How Israel defied ICJ provisional measures, one month on

WEST BANK – WAFA reports: A 13-year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammad Khaled Zaid, succumbed to his injuries Saturday night after being shot by Israeli occupation forces near the Jalazon refugee camp, located north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, according to medical sources.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that their teams dealt with the boy after he had been severely wounded in the chest by a gunshot, then left bleeding for about an hour before the incident was reported by the occupation army, and he was handed over to Palestinian ambulance services. He was pronounced dead shortly after.

ELSEWHERE – Democracy Now! reports: Ireland’s senate unanimously voted last week to impose sanctions against Israel, prevent the passage of U.S. weapons to Israel via Irish airspace and advocate for an international arms embargo against Israel. This is Irish Senator Frances Black, who helped put forward the motion.

Frances Black: “I think back when I visited Gaza back in 2018 and the amazing people I met there and the spirit of the people and how amazing — and I don’t know if they’re dead. I don’t know if they’re alive. I remember one woman saying to me when I was in Gaza back then, she said that she was a human rights — from a human rights organization, a wonderful women’s group. And she said, ‘Why have the international community abandoned us?’ And those words stay with me.”

MEDIA – Washington Post reports: The union representing New York Times employees accused the company Friday of targeting employees with Middle Eastern or North African backgrounds in a weeks-long investigation into leaks from its newsroom regarding the paper’s coverage of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.

NewsGuild of New York president Susan DeCarava said managers picked out particular employees — “targeted for their national origin, ethnicity and race” — who had raised concerns about the paper’s reporting for “particularly hostile questioning.”

Union leaders said Times managers had questioned employees about their involvement in an affinity group for employees of Middle Eastern and North African heritage and “ordered them to hand over the names of all of the … active members, and demanded copies of private text-message conversations between colleagues about their shared workplace concerns.”

The leak probe was launched after the Intercept reported that the Times’s flagship podcast, “The Daily,” had shelved a planned episode about the paper’s major investigative report describing a “pattern of gender-based violence” during the attacks, after staffers and outside critics raised questions about the story’s credibility. (Read the full article here.)

RECOMMENDED READING (If Americans Knew): Two reports debunk New York Times ‘investigative report’ of mass rape on October 7th

POLITICS – Ha’aretz reports: AIPAC’s United Democracy Project Super PAC is joining its first significant race in the 2024 election cycle, spending more than $4.5 million as of February 28 to target Dave Min in a Democratic primary to replace Rep. Katie Porter in California.

The figure is the most AIPAC has ever spent against a candidate in its short history.

Min is running against political activist Joanna Weiss in the primary for the Orange County seat which is set to take place this coming Tuesday. Republicans consider the race a prime pick-up opportunity after Porter opted to run for Senate.

The ads – like the vast majority of the attack ads it funded in the 2022 election cycle – do not focus on Israel but instead showcase the California state senator’s 2023 DUI arrest.

The attacks against Min bring UDP’s tactics under renewed scrutiny once again after its methods two years ago earned derision from much of the Democratic base – particularly since the super PAC’s involvement in Democratic primaries was largely bankrolled by Republican megadonors.

RECOMMENDED READING (Ha’aretz via IAK): These Are the Jewish Megadonors Helping Fund Biden’s – and Republican Congress Members’ – Reelection Campaigns

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – MARCH 2:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – March 2: at least 30,451* (30,410 in Gaza* (over 13,230 children, 8,860 women), and at least 417 in the West Bank (100 children). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 38,066 Palestinian deaths.

11 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons

About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.

About 2.2 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are facing Crisis, Emergency, or Famine levels of food insecurity.

Palestinian injuries from October 7 – March 2: at least 75,057** (including at least 71,700 in Gaza and 4,611 in the West Bank).

It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – March 2: ~1,392 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~574 were civilians, 373 or 337 were security and/or military forces, ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 245 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza;, 13 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.

NBC reports: “According to the latest available IDF data… nearly 1 in 5, or 17%, of all Israel’s losses have come not at the hands of Hamas but from mishaps on its own side.”

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.

Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.

For more news, go here and here. Broadcast news from the region is here.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
 

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