March 15 (UPI) — The Israeli Defense Forces on Friday denied responsibility for an attack during an aid delivery near the Kuwaiti roundabout in northern Gaza City where at least 20 people were killed and 155 others were injured.
IDF said a preliminary investigation of the incident found that its forces “did not open fire at the aid convoy” and that a review of its operational systems and ground forces found that “no tank fire, air strike or gunfire was carried out toward the Gazan civilians in at the aid convoy.”
The Gaza Health Ministry had said dozens of people came under Israeli shelling while waiting for the aid at the roundabout that had been designated for delivery of U.N. aid, subject to Israeli approval and accused Israeli forces of “targeting” the civilians.
“What happened at the Kuwaiti roundabout points to hidden intentions of the occupation to commit a new, horrible, massacre,” the ministry said. “As aid trucks were entering, the Palestinian gunmen continued to shoot as the crowd of Gazans began looting the trucks. Additionally, a number of Gazan civilians were run over by the trucks.”
IDF said it was continuing to “review the incident.”
Gaza Civil Defense Spokesman Mahmoud Basal on Thursday backed the health ministry in asserting that Israel was behind the attack.
“The Israeli occupation forces are still practicing the policy of killing innocent citizens waiting for relief aid as a result of the famine occurring in the northern Gaza Strip,” Basal said.
Thursday’s attack came after Gaza health officials said Israeli shelling killed at least five people, including a UNRWA worker, at a U.N. food distribution center in Rafah.
Late last month, more than 100 people were killed and 760 were injured while waiting for aid near the Al-Nabulsi roundabout.
The United Nations, as well as EU members France, Germany and Italy called for an investigation into that incident as Hamas alleged the civilians died after being struck by fire from Israeli troops while IDF said they were trampled as a crowd rushed toward the aid.
Delivering food aid on the ground has been even more difficult in the wake of that incident as the World Food Program said earlier this month that a delivery was blocked by IDF after waiting three hours at a checkpoint in Wadi Gaza.
The World Food Program said the delivery, which was its first attempt since Feb. 20 after previous aid deliveries were subject to looting, was “stopped by a large crowd of desperate people” who took about 200 toms of food after it was turned away and rerouted.
The WFP said ground deliveries are necessary to deliver large quantities of food that cannot be matched through deliveries by airdrop.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said that five children were killed and several other people were injured during a “random” airdrop last week in the Al Shati camp of west Gaza City.
The United Nations warned that 2.2 million residents were one step away from “catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation” amid the war in Gaza.
On Friday Open Arms, a charity vessel, delivering food aid provided by American non-profit World Central Kitchen arrived in Gaza in the first delivery through an international maritime corridor, aiming to combat starvation.
