The Israeli military has again indiscriminately attacked Palestinian crowds waiting for relief in the besieged Gaza Strip. At least 19 people were killed. 23 others were injured in this incident.

Israel has carried out similar attacks on aid seekers in Gaza before. However, Israel has denied this latest attack on aid seekers. Al Jazeera reported this information in a report on Sunday (March 24).

According to the report, at least 19 people have been reported killed by Israeli forces on aid seekers in Gaza. Gaza’s health ministry and the territory’s media office said at least 19 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes targeting civilians waiting for aid southeast of Gaza City.

Gaza’s media office said in a statement Saturday, “Israeli occupation forces have carried out a massacre.” The attack killed 19 people and injured 23 more civilians as thousands of civilians waited for flour and aid near Al-Quwat roundabout.’

It said Israeli troops and tanks fired machine guns at “starving people who were waiting to receive bags of flour and aid”. That too in a place that could not have posed any danger to the Israeli forces.

Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense department, said there was “heavy fire on civilians” and the injured were taken to the nearby Ahli Arab Hospital.

But with Gaza’s health care system nearly collapsing, many have been treated outside in the open. He said, “Many have been seriously injured, some of them have been injured by knives.” The reality is sad, difficult and challenging.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army has denied firing on the crowd seeking help. Israel has even claimed that the news of firing on these people who came to seek help is ‘false’.
“Reports claiming that (the Israeli military) attacked a large number of Gazans near an aid convoy are false,” an army statement said.

“Preliminary investigations have determined that no airstrikes were carried out against the convoy and that (Israeli) forces did not open fire on the people coming to seek relief,” the statement claimed.