Every night since the beginning of March, rumors have been circulating in Gaza City and its destroyed suburbs, threatened by famine. From the south, trucks loaded with foodstuffs are heading north. Forming a long procession and lit up by the glow of cell phones, thousands of people made their way to the Kuwait traffic circle, one of the entrances to Gaza City. The city is an operation zone for the Israeli army, which controls access to it.
On the evening of Thursday, March 14, the wait for a food distribution at the roundabout, where several hundred Gazans had gathered, once again turned into a bloodbath. More than 20 people were killed by Israeli fire, according to local authorities. A similar slaughter occurred at the end of February, when more than a hundred people were killed in the so-called "flour massacre".
Journalist Mahmoud Essa, who was present at the Kuwait traffic circle, filmed images of bloodied bodies being evacuated on Thursday night. Contacted by Le Monde, he said that "Israeli vehicles were stationed around 300 meters away. I didn't see any movement of the crowd in their direction. But they opened fire with smoke shells and then with live ammunition: intense fire, followed by shellfire." The journalist also reported seeing helicopters and small quadcopter drones attacking the crowd. Panicked, many people took cover in the surrounding area and did not leave until Friday morning.
By mid-day on Friday, video shot by the journalist showed residents still collecting bodies, transported on a horse-drawn cart. At the hospital, an Agence France-Presse contributor also saw numerous ambulances bringing in corpses and victims of gunshot wounds.
The Israeli army claims that its forces "facilitated the passage of a convoy of 31 humanitarian aid trucks containing food and supplies intended for distribution to civilians in the northern Gaza Strip" when, about an hour before the convoy was due to arrive in the humanitarian corridor, "armed Palestinians opened fire." "Additionally, a number of Gazan civilians were run over by the trucks," said the army.
It denied having opened fire on civilians, and subsequently published a blurred black-and-white video purporting to show "Palestinian gunmen opening fire in the midst of Gazan civilians," with no discernible gunfire or weapons among the crowd.
Another video and testimonies collected by journalist Ahmad Hijazi call this version into question. It shows survivors, some with arms laden with small flour sacks, wandering through the rubble of a house, stepping over half a dozen bloodied bodies covered in dust and rubble. "Some civilians were forced to take refuge in a house adjacent to the traffic circle during the shooting, but the army launched an air strike which directly targeted the building," he said.
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