The Israeli military shot and killed Palestinians who were waiting for aid trucks in southwest Gaza early this morning. Over 100 are dead, with Gazans saying the majority of those casualties were at the IDF’s hands.
It’s been dubbed the “Flour Massacre” as the trucks carried sacks of flour to feed starving Palestinians.
In addition to the deaths, the Gaza Health Ministry reported over 750 people were also wounded.
Bisan Owda, an independent Palestinian journalist who has amassed a large following for her on-the-ground reporting since Israel invaded Gaza in the wake of the Oct. 7 2023 Hamas attack, posted on her Instagram early this morning, calling it the Flour Massacre.
Owda said because Gazans are facing “forced starvation,” some sleep in the streets to await aid trucks that come “one or twice a month.” When bags of flour arrived today, Gazans ran to the aid trucks, and according to reports, were shot at by the Israeli military.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, Gazans need around 500 trucks of aid per day to meet their basic needs.
“Israel is using the starvation weapon against us,” Owda says. “This is a holocaust.”
The Israeli military shared a different story: It said that “most of the casualties” were a result of a stampede and Gazans being run over by aid trucks leaving the scene. Others, it said, were because Gazans endangered soldiers.
“The army said it did not fire at the crowd rushing the main aid convoy,” the Times of Israel reported today. “It acknowledged that troops opened fire on several Gazans who moved toward soldiers and a tank at an IDF checkpoint, endangering soldiers, after they had rushed the last truck in the convoy further south.”
Both #FlourMassacre and “the IDF” are trending on X, where many are expressing their frustrations and grief about the attack, and dispelling what they say is the IDF’s false narrative.
“The terrorist Israeli occupation deliberately slaughtered starving Palestinians in Gaza. Over 100 civilians were murdered while trying to get aid to feed themselves & their families,” Ahmed Samir, who identified themselves as a Palestinian refugee, tweeted. “Their only crime was trying to get a bag of flour. Is the ICJ watching this?! #FlourMassacre.”
Earlier this week, many countries argued in front of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), saying that Israel’s attacks on Palestine are a violation of international law. The U.S., however, said that the IJC should not advise Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories.
“Israeli gunfire against Palestinians waiting for food trucks early this morning,” @Sentletse tweeted alongside Al-Jazeera footage of gunfire. “The @IDF which lies unprovoked, claims that these people died from stampede.”
The current death toll in Gaza is more than 30,000, and the United Nations said that more than half a million Gazans are “one step away from famine.”
