12 Dead As Aid Security Convoy Hit By Israeli Attack In Gaza

December 12, 2024 EMMANUEL ADEBAYO AJIBOLA

According to reports by Al Jazeera Arabic correspondents, Palestinian security guards were attacked by Israelis while escorting a humanitarian aid shipment in the Gaza Strip, leaving at least 12 people killed and dozens injured.

As a result of the Israel attack on Thursday that killed civilian guards tasked with securing the aid convoy in the southern part of the war-torn enclave, medics and residents reported to the Reuters news agency that at least 30 people were injured, leaving several in critical condition.

Based on a video clip distributed by local Palestinian media in Gaza, the bodies of the aid convoy security personnel who were killed west of Khan Younis were stacked in a mortuary.

It is noted that the attack is the only latest by Israeli forces on humanitarian aid workers, convoys, and those trying to assist the safe entry of food and other supplies into war-torn Gaza, which is gripped by food shortages and fears of famine in the north of the territory, where an Israeli military ground operation and siege have been ongoing for several weeks.

At least 10 Palestinian people were killed in an Israeli attack on Rafah, also in the south of the Gaza Strip, last Sunday night while lining up to buy flour.

The Israeli military is yet to respond to its latest recounted attack on security guards protecting an aid shipment.

12 DEAD — ***Funeral for Victims of the Israeli Air strike***

Al Jazeera Arabic also reported that in the early hours of Thursday morning, six people, including children, were killed in an Israeli attack on a residential building in western Gaza City in the north of the Gaza Strip, while the death toll rose to 13 following Israel’s bombing of a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza stated in a statement on Wednesday that at least 44,805 Palestinians have now been killed and 106,257 wounded in Israel’s unrelenting war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.

The current attack on security guards trying to protect aid shipments entering the Gaza Strip came after UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, revealed that it had taken the “difficult decision” to stop aid deliveries through the main crossing into the Gaza Strip from the beginning of December.

Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Chief, explained that at that time humanitarian operations had become “unnecessarily impossible” due to “the ongoing siege, hurdles from Israeli authorities, political decisions to restrict the amounts of aid, lack of safety on aid routes, and targeting of local police” who secure aid convoys.

He added that the country must refrain from attacks on humanitarian workers” and asked Israel to allow aid transport to Gaza.

Lazzarini on Wednesday stated that a joint UN aid convoy was able to distribute urgent food supplies for 200,000 people in southern and central areas of the Strip after aid resumed to pass through the Karem Abu Salem (also known as the Kerem Shalom) border crossing between Gaza and Israel.

With the “political will,” Lazzarini noted, delivering aid safely to Gaza was possible.

He wrote in a post on social media, “We need to scale up our support to the people of Gaza [and] need all parties to continue facilitation of safe, unimpeded [and] uninterrupted humanitarian access to ensure aid reaches those who need it most.”.

Haoliang Xu, associate administrator of the UN’s Development Programme, spoke to reporters on Wednesday in New York after returning from the Gaza Strip, mentioning that the conditions in Gaza were not like anything he had seen before.

He said, “I’ve been to many conflicts and disaster situations or disasters themselves that I experienced. I can say that I’ve never seen the kind of devastation that I’ve seen in Gaza in my career.”.

He added, “What I know is that at least for the last month, no fresh fruit and vegetables have been imported” into Gaza.