Middle East conflict live updates: World leaders react to ‘tragic and alarming’ casualties in Gaza aid delivery

Global leaders expressed shock and grief over an incident in which Gaza health officials said more than 100 people were killed after a crowd converged on an aid convoy in Gaza City. The leaders connected the event to the dire humanitarian situation in the territory. Palestinian and Israeli officials exchanged blame for Thursday’s incident, which the White House described as “tragic and alarming,” and President Biden said it will complicate hostage negotiations.

Here’s what to know

• Palestinian officials and eyewitnesses blamed casualties on Israeli gunfire, and Israeli officials blamed a stampede near the aid convoy. Many details of the Gaza City incident were still unclear.
• At least 30,228 people have been killed and 71,377 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and says 242 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operation in Gaza.
• As the humanitarian situation in Gaza deteriorates and access worsens, countries are looking to other possible solutions, such as airdropping aid into the territory. Jordanian air force pilots dropped 33 tons of medical supplies, food and other necessities on Gaza on Thursday.
• Ten children have died of malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza, the Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday. The Strip is on the brink of famine, humanitarian groups say, as convoys have increasingly struggled to make aid deliveries amid intense bombardment and disruption at border crossings.

5:24 AM: Leaders and humanitarian groups condemn aid convoy incident

A chaotic aid delivery Thursday in Gaza City during which Gaza health officials said more than 100 people were killed and more than 700 wounded has outraged humanitarian groups and drawn scrutiny from global leaders, who said the event reflects the desperate humanitarian conditions in the enclave.

Palestinian officials and eyewitnesses said Israeli forces opened fire on the crowd and doctors said that many of the dead and injured had bullet wounds. Israel disputed the casualty count and said people died in a stampede and not from Israeli fire — which officials described as warning shots not directed at the convoy. Humanitarian groups are warning that Gaza is on the brink of a famine, with aid supplies meeting only a small fraction of the vast need.

“The desperate civilians in Gaza need urgent help, including those in the north,” where the United Nations has not been able to deliver aid in more than a week, said Secretary General António Guterres, condemning the incident on social media.

President Biden discussed the incident, which the White House described as “tragic and alarming,” in a call with the Egyptian president Thursday and told reporters that he expects it will complicate ongoing hostage negotiations. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a news conference that the United States is still “seeking information” on the conflicting reports, but that is clear from the footage that the “situation is incredibly desperate, that people are swarming these trucks because they are hungry.”

During a closed emergency meeting late Thursday, Algeria proposed a U.N. Security Council statement blaming Israeli forces for opening fire, but the United States did not support it, the Associated Press reported. “We don’t have all the facts on the ground – that’s the problem,” U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood said.

Top E.U. diplomat Josep Borrell said he was “horrified by news of yet another carnage among civilians in Gaza desperate for humanitarian aid,” calling the deaths “totally unacceptable.” French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday expressed “deep indignation at the images coming from Gaza where civilians have been targeted by Israeli soldiers,” adding that he was calling “for truth, justice, and respect for international law.” France’s foreign minister reportedly called for “an independent investigation to determine what happened.”

Officials from European countries, including from Portugal and Spain, also suggested the incident highlighted the need for a cease-fire. Colombian President Gustavo Petro went a step further, announcing Thursday that Colombia would suspend purchases of Israeli weapons after the incident, calling the deaths “genocide.”

Doctors Without Borders released a statement calling the incident “the direct result of the string of unconscionable decisions taken by Israeli authorities while waging this war.” It said its staff in the north of the territory, which is largely cut off from aid, reported there is not enough food to eat and some are resorting to eating pet food to survive.

By: Kelsey Ables and Victoria Bisset

5:24 AM: Analysis: Gaza’s spiraling, unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe

Middle East conflict live updates: World leaders react to ‘tragic and alarming’ casualties in Gaza aid delivery

The disaster that unfolded Thursday marked a new low in the Gaza Strip’s unfolding calamity. The grisly incident encapsulates much of the horror of the moment in Gaza, a territory that has been pulverized by the Israeli military campaign that followed Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 strike on southern Israel. On social media, observers and journalists described the scene as the “flour massacre.” Overwhelmed, semi-destroyed hospitals in Gaza absorbed a new influx of hundreds of wounded civilians, many of whose injuries, officials told my colleagues, were inflicted by gunfire.

Read the full story

By: Ishaan Tharoor

5:23 AM: As besieged Gaza grows desperate, donors drop aid from the sky

A view of part of the Gaza Strip from a Jordanian air force C-130 delivering aid to Gaza. (Hussam Hasan for The Washington Post)

KING ABDULLAH II AIR BASE, Jordan — From above, northern Gaza might be the skeletal remains of a forgotten ancient city, the broken pieces of its bombed-out buildings scattered like handfuls of chipped teeth.

But the area, which for weeks bore the brunt of the fighting in Israel’s military campaign against Hamas, is far from abandoned. Its people are facing starvation, aid workers say, and clamoring for relief. Jordanian air force pilots dropped 33 tons of medical supplies, food and other necessities on Gaza on Thursday — vital support for those it reaches, but nowhere near enough to meet the widespread need in the besieged enclave of more than 2 million people.

Neither are the truckloads of aid that are entering the strip at a declining pace — and that carry dangers of their own. More than 100 people were killed in Gaza City on Thursday and 700 wounded, health officials there said, after a crowd converged on a humanitarian aid convoy. Palestinian officials and witnesses blamed Israeli gunfire; Israeli officials blamed a stampede.

“I think the airdrop is a last-resort, extraordinarily expensive way of providing assistance,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the principal U.N. agency for Palestinian affairs, told reporters Thursday in East Jerusalem. “I don’t think that the airdropping of food in the Gaza Strip should be the answer today. The real answer is: Open the crossings and bring convoys and medical assistance into the Gaza Strip.”

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By: Sarah Dadouch

5:23 AM: Chaotic aid delivery turns deadly as Israeli, Gazan officials trade blame

Men carry the bodies of people killed in an early morning incident at an aid distribution point in Gaza City on Feb. 29. (AFP/Getty Images)

JERUSALEM — More than 100 people were killed Thursday, Gazan health officials said, after a crowd converged on a rare humanitarian aid convoy in Gaza City, triggering a chaotic incident that Palestinian officials and eyewitnesses blamed on Israeli gunfire and Israeli officials blamed on a stampede.

More than 700 Palestinians were wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as the death toll in the enclave surged past 30,000.

Though many details of the incident were still unclear — including, most critically, what had caused such a heavy human toll — it underscored the desperate plight of Gaza’s civilians and further complicated delicate international efforts to secure a cease-fire.

For months, amid the wholesale destruction of urban areas, mass displacement and mounting hunger, aid groups and humanitarian officials had warned that Gazan society was nearing collapse. This was a moment when their warnings seemed prophetic.

The Israel Defense Forces released black-and-white drone footage showing hundreds of Palestinians rushing toward the slow-moving relief convoy; videos on social media showed a frantic scramble in the pre-dawn darkness along al-Rashid Street, in the southwest part of Gaza City.

Descriptions of what happened next were contradictory.

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By: Miriam Berger, Louisa Loveluck and Hajar Harb

5:22 AM: Photos: Activists call on U.S. to help secure release of hostages held in Gaza

Demonstrators block a road outside the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on Friday during a rally calling for the release of hostages kidnapped in the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

Israeli demonstrators have urged U.S. support in securing the release of hostages taken by Hamas, lighting smoke flares outside of a branch of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. According to the Israeli government, 253 people are believed to have been abducted during the Oct. 7 attack. The estimated number of living hostages still in Gaza is 99.

Cyclists ride past demonstrators during a rally calling for the release of hostages kidnapped in the deadly Oct. 7 attack.

Demonstrators called for the support of the United States in securing the hostages’ release.

Demonstrators fired smoke flares during Friday’s rally.

By: Victoria Bisset and Morgan Coates