Israeli forces shell hundreds of Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza City

The incident happened on al-Rasheed Street where the displaced Palestinians gathered for desperately needed supplies of food.  Footage circulating on social media on Sunday shows hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza City rushing towards aid trucks before fleeing after Israeli forces open fire.

Ramy Abdu, the head of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, commented on the incident in a post on X saying, “What our team documented on al-Rasheed Street, west of Gaza City, is terrifying, painful, and brutal”.  “Very small quantities of food arrived today, and it is impossible for them to reach the camps in northern Gaza,” he wrote.

Israeli forces have repeatedly targeted aid seekers in Gaza.  Last month, an Israeli attack on people lining up to receive humanitarian supplies in northern Gaza killed at least 20 people. The Israeli military shelled the crowd with tank fire and quadcopters.

In recent days, Israeli protesters have also stopped aid trucks from entering the Gaza Strip, as the besieged strip is under the regime’s siege and heavy bombardments.  The Israeli protesters have set up tents at the Kerem Shalom crossing, blocking aid trucks bound for Gaza.

Since early October, the Tel Aviv regime has cut the free flow of water, food, fuel, and power to the Gaza Strip, placing restrictions on the international aid sent to the region.

Meanwhile,  International charity group Oxfam has said that 1.5 million displaced people in Rafah face the looming threat of an Israeli ground invasion with nowhere safe to go.

In a post on X, it quoted a staff member as saying: “The faces of the people in Rafah are filled with despair. Their minds are consumed by the looming threat of a ground invasion … Everyone is afraid.”