More than 80 dead, 700 injured in Israeli attack on aid distribution queue in Gaza

More of 100 people have died and 700 people were injured during an Israeli attack in which hundreds of Gazans gathered in front of the distribution of humanitarian aid in city of Loop, as reported by the Gaza Strip Ministry of Health, via a statement. Given the high number of injuries, the death toll is expected to rise in the coming hours.

Hundreds of Palestinians were waiting for trucks carrying humanitarian aid to arrive at the Nabulsi Roundabout, near Al Rashid Street in Gaza City, when they fell victim to the attack. “It was premeditated and intentional, in the context of the genocide and the ethnic cleansing of the population of the Gaza Strip. “The occupying army knew that these victims had come to this area to get food and aid, but killed them in cold blood,” the ministry statement said.

The Gaza government has blamed “the US government, the international community, the occupation and international organizations for killing civilians as they starve to death under the occupation.” There have been more deaths on the Strip since the war began 30,000.

The news comes at a time when the international community is putting pressure on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in his office in Jerusalem with the new UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction in Gaza, Sigrid Kaag.

Both the Islamist movement Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian National Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, have condemned this latest attack: “a horrific massacre in Gaza, unprecedented in the history of war crimes, which is part of the war against hunger and displacement against our people,” Hamas denounced.