(Gaza and Jerusalem) Five people were killed on Friday and ten others injured by the fall of humanitarian aid packages dropped by planes on the city of Gaza, we learned from a hospital source.
The victims were treated at al-Chifa hospital in Gaza, Mohammed al-Chiekh, head nurse in the emergency department of this establishment, told AFP, who specified that the accident had occurred. took place in the al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.
“When the planes started dropping the cargo, me and my brother went to the area hoping to get a bag of flour,” said Mohammed al-Ghoul, a 50-year-old man living in this camp located near the sea.
PHOTO LEO CORREA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A plane drops humanitarian aid over Gaza on March 8.
“But the parachute did not open and the cargo fell like a rocket on the roof of one of the houses,” he explained, indicating that he then saw people carrying three bodies and saw injured people among the people who had gathered on the roof of the building to try to get help.
For several days, the United States and other countries, such as Jordan and France, have been carrying out air drops of food aid on the Gaza Strip besieged by Israel, in the grip of a major humanitarian crisis and threatened with famine, according to the UN.
A maritime corridor between Cyprus and Gaza to deliver aid
The European Union and the United States announced on Friday the upcoming opening of a maritime corridor between Cyprus and Gaza to transport humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory threatened by famine and constantly bombarded by Israel, after five months of war .
This announcement followed that of American President Joe Biden on Thursday on a major humanitarian operation by sea, according to American officials, involving the construction of a “temporary pier” in Gaza to allow “massive aid”.
Israel “welcomed” the maritime humanitarian corridor planned between Cyprus and Gaza, approximately 370 km apart. This initiative “will allow an increase in aid [entrant] in Gaza after a security check corresponding to Israeli standards,” according to Foreign Affairs.
After five months of a devastating war triggered on October 7 by a bloody attack by Hamas against Israel, Israeli strikes on Gaza have seen no respite: in the last 24 hours, at least 78 people have died, bringing the death toll to 30,878. deaths in Gaza since the start of the conflict according to the authorities of the Islamist movement.
The United States is putting increasing pressure on Israel, their ally, which has besieged Gaza since October 9 and only lets in aid trucks from Egypt.
According to the UN, of the 2.4 million inhabitants in the cramped territory, 2.2 million are threatened with famine with serious shortages of food and drinking water and 1.7 have been displaced by fighting and violence. Israeli strikes which caused colossal destruction.
“We are very close to the opening of this corridor, hopefully this Sunday,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the port of Larnaca in southern Cyprus, the EU country. geographically closest to Gaza.
PHOTO ANDREAS LOUCAIDES, PIO VIA REUTERS
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides at the port of Larnaca
A first pilot operation will be launched on Friday, she added.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire […] This is why the European Commission, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States are announcing today their intention to open a maritime corridor to deliver additional humanitarian aid that is sorely needed,” according to a joint statement from the participants.
“Complex” operation
While recognizing that this operation would be “complex”, they underlined their determination to work to “guarantee that aid is delivered as efficiently as possible”.
Accompanied by the Prime Ministers of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis and of Belgium Alexander De Croo, Mme von der Leyen is due to travel to Egypt on March 17, mediator in the conflict and which keeps its land border with the Gaza Strip closed
Airdrops, as well as sending aid by sea, cannot replace the land route, believes the UN, which warns of an “almost inevitable widespread famine” in Gaza.
“Diversification of land supply routes remains the optimal solution,” according to Sigrid Kaag, the UN aid coordinator for Gaza.
According to the Hamas health ministry, at least 20 civilians, most of them children, died of malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza.
“Temporary pier”
“I am working hard to achieve an immediate ceasefire of at least six weeks,” Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address on Thursday, calling on Israel not to use humanitarian aid as a “bargaining currency”.
According to US officials, the construction of a “temporary pier” in Gaza will take several weeks.
Israeli soldiers have captured large areas of Palestinian territory since launching their ground offensive on October 27, including the small port of Gaza.
Occupied by the Israeli army from 1967 to 2005, the Gaza Strip, already subject to an Israeli blockade since Hamas took power in 2007, is bordered by Israel, Egypt which keeps its border closed and the Mediterranean Sea .
The war was triggered on October 7 by an attack of unprecedented scale by Hamas which left at least 1,160 dead, most of them civilians, in southern Israel, according to an AFP count established from official sources.
Around 250 people were also kidnapped and taken to Gaza that day, and 130 hostages are still being held there, 31 of whom Israel says are dead.
“Everyone was screaming”
In response, Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union.
“The Israeli army will continue to operate throughout the Gaza Strip, including in Rafah (South), the last bastion of Hamas,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated on Thursday.
To achieve “total victory”, Israel says it is preparing a ground offensive on Rafah, on the Egyptian border, where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are massed according to the UN.
“We were sleeping when a missile hit the house. Everyone started screaming. My sister-in-law and her children were killed. We don’t know where to go now with our children,” Jamila Abou Audeh, a 55-year-old displaced person, tells Rafah in tears.
After four days of unsuccessful negotiations in Cairo, negotiations on a truce involving the mediating countries – Egypt, Qatar, United States – are due to resume next week, according to pro-government Egyptian media Al-Qahera News.
The mediators hoped to be able to reach an agreement on a truce combined with a release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners before Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Muslims, which begins early next week.
Hamas is demanding a definitive ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza before any agreement can be reached. What Israel refuses.
Aid convoy looted in Gaza: Israeli army shoots ‘suspects’
A first examination of the tragedy that occurred on February 29 in Gaza where 120 people, according to Hamas authorities, were killed around a humanitarian aid convoy stormed by a hungry crowd, shows that Israeli soldiers “fired specifically on several suspects,” the Israeli army said on Friday.
“The command’s review found that troops [israéliennes] did not fire on the humanitarian convoy, but that they fired on a number of suspects who were approaching [de soldats israéliens] and presented a threat,” the army wrote in a statement.
According to a witness interviewed by AFP that day, the violence broke out as thousands of desperate people in search of food gathered in western Gaza City. As an aid convoy passed “thousands of people [ont] stormed the trucks” and “the soldiers [israéliens présents] fired on the crowd because people were getting too close to the tanks,” this witness said.
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Two men mourn the deaths of Palestinians killed during the Israeli army’s intervention in Gaza.
On the evening of the tragedy, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, spokesperson for the Israeli army, insisted on the fact that the Israeli army was protecting this convoy, chartered according to him by Egypt, to allow it to arrive at good port, in the north of the Gaza Strip, where the UN fears an imminent famine after five months of war between Israel and Hamas.
According to a latest report Friday from the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Islamist movement, 120 people were killed, all by Israeli fire, in the drama of February 29, the circumstances of which are still far from clear, and which sparked a wave of international indignation.
But according to the Israeli army, the convoy, attacked around 4:30 a.m. (9:30 p.m. Eastern time) on the coastal road in the west of Gaza City, was “looted” by “a crowd of approximately 12,000 Gazans.
PHOTO ALINE MANOUKIAN, ISRAELI ARMY VIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
“While the looting was taking place, incidents causing great harm to civilians were caused by [une] stampede and the fact that people were run over by trucks,” the army wrote.
In addition, “dozens of Gazans advanced towards the troops [israéliennes] close, up to several meters from them, thus posing a real threat” for these soldiers.
“At this point, the soldiers fired preemptively to keep the suspects at bay. As the suspects continued to advance towards them, the troops fired precisely at several suspects to eliminate the threat,” the weapon’s press release further indicates, without specifying the possible number of deaths caused by these shots, by the stampede or crushed. by trucks.