Deir al-Balah, July 21 (LaPresse) – Israel used tanks, snipers, and other weapons to fire on a crowd of Palestinians seeking food aid in northern Gaza. This is the accusation made by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), which in a statement released on Sunday condemned the violence that erupted in the north of the Strip as Palestinians tried to reach a convoy of trucks carrying food.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 80 people were killed in the incident. The Israeli army (IDF), however, stated that it had fired warning shots “to remove an immediate threat” but questioned the casualty figures reported by the Palestinians.
The accusation by a major humanitarian agency that has long maintained good relations with Israel is based on eyewitness accounts and other sources.
On Sunday, in northern Gaza, the Health Ministry, several witnesses, and a UN official reported that Israeli forces opened fire on the crowd attempting to collect food from a convoy of 25 trucks that had entered the area.
The WFP statement, which says the crowd surrounding the convoy “was targeted by Israeli tank fire, sniper fire, and other firearms,” supports these reports. The statement did not specify the number of deaths, stating only that the incident resulted in the loss of “countless lives.”
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