United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the killing of more than a hundred people who sought humanitarian aid in Gaza is a situation that requires an effective independent investigation.
Speaking in St. Vincent and the Grenadines ahead of a regional summit, Guterres said he was “shocked” by the latest episode in the war with Israel, in which the Palestinian Authority claims more than 30,000 civilians have been killed since October 7.
Responding to questions about the failure of a recent Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire, Guterres said worsening geopolitical divisions “have transformed the veto into an effective instrument to paralyze the Security Council.”
“I am absolutely convinced that we need a humanitarian ceasefire and that we need the unconditional and immediate release of the hostages and that we should have a Security Council that is able to achieve those goals,” Guterres said.
More than 100 Palestinians were killed on Thursday as they waited for aid to be delivered, but Israel blamed the deaths on crowds that surrounded the aid trucks, saying the victims were run over.
At least 112 people were killed and more than 280 wounded in the incident near Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said.
These civilian losses are the highest in recent weeks. Hamas said the incident could jeopardize negotiations in Qatar aimed at securing a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages it is holding.
When asked if he thought it would complicate negotiations, US President Joe Biden said: “I know it will.”
Medical workers in Gaza said they were unable to cope with the flood of seriously wounded after the death toll in the nearly five-month war topped 30,000, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Israel disputed the figures released by officials in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which Israeli forces have been bombarding for months since the Palestinian group’s deadly attack in southern Israel on October 7.
The Israeli military said the trucks were operated by private contractors as part of the relief operation it has overseen over the past four nights.
An Israeli official said there were two incidents within a few hundred meters of each other. In the first, dozens were killed or wounded as they tried to provide aid from trucks and were run over.
He said there was a second incident after the trucks left. Some people in the crowd approached the soldiers who felt threatened and opened fire, killing an unknown number in a “limited response”, he said. He rejected the number of casualties given by the Gaza authorities, but did not specify the number of casualties himself.
At a later briefing, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari also said dozens of people had been trampled to death or injured in the fight to retrieve supplies from the trucks.
He said tanks accompanying the trucks subsequently fired warning shots to disperse the crowd and withdrew when events began to spiral out of control. There was no IDF strike against the aid convoy.
The US State Department announced that it is urgently seeking information about the incident, as well as the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reports Reuters.
