9 killed, others injured as Israel bombs aid truck in central Gaza

At least nine people were killed and several others injured when Israeli forces shelled a Palestinian crowd collecting humanitarian aid from a truck in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, according to medical sources.

Sunday’s attack was the second in the last five days on displaced Palestinians in Gaza while waiting for humanitarian aid in the war-battered territory.

On Thursday, at least 116 Palestinians were killed and 760 others injured when Israeli forces shelled a crowd waiting for humanitarian aid south of Gaza City.

“Nine people were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli bombing that targeted an aid truck in the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip,” a medical source told Anadolu on condition of anonymity.

Palestinian group Hamas denounced the attack as part of Israel’s “war of genocide and ethnic cleansing.”

“The systematic starvation and depriving our people of obtaining humanitarian aid is a pillar of the Israeli war” on Gaza, it added in a statement.

Israel has launched a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.

At least 30,410 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, and 71,700 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza, leaving its population, particularly residents in the north where the Thursday shootings took place, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war, now in its 149th day, has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.