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Israeli forces open fire on hundreds of starving Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza, hospitals say; 25 dead
The incident took place on the Salah al-Din Road south of Wadi Gaza, according to the Awda hospital located in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp.
Israeli forces and drones early Tuesday opened fire on hundreds of starving Palestinians who were waiting for aid trucks in central Gaza, eyewitnesses and hospitals said.
The firing killed at least 25 people, the Associated Press reported. The report said that as the Palestinians were walking eastward to get close to the aid trucks which were approaching them when the Israeli forces opened fire.
The incident took place on the Salah al-Din Road south of Wadi Gaza, according to the Awda hospital located in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp, Associated Press reported. The hospital received the victims of the firing.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the matter.
Meanwhile, the Awda hospital said that apart from those killed, another 146 people had been wounded in the firing, among which 62 were in a critical condition. These people were transferred to other hospitals in Gaza, Awda officials said.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, in the central town of Deir al-Balah, said that it had received the bodies of six people who had been killed in the firing by the Israeli forces.
‘It was a massacre,' say eyewitnesses
Eyewitnesses at the site of the incident called it a “massacre”. “It was a massacre,” Ahmed Halawa told the Associated Press. He claimed that the tanks and drones had continued to fire at the people even when they had started fleeing. He said that several people had been killed or wounded in the incident.
Another eyewitness, Hossam Abu Shahada, told AP that the drones were hovering over the area where the people were standing for a while. However, as the people started moving eastward towards the aid trucks, the tanks and drones started firing towards them. Shahada called the incident “chaotic and bloody”, adding that people were trying to escape.
He added that he had seen three people lying motionless on the ground, as per AP. Palestinian health officials and eyewitnesses have previously too claimed that Israeli forces had opened fire on people seeking food. Meanwhile, the IDF has maintained that it fires on people who approach the forces in a suspicious manner.
