AhlulBayt News Agency: The Hamas Movement has accused Israeli occupation forces (IOF) of committing a “horrific massacre” that killed more than 15 Palestinians who were attempting to access food aid near a checkpoint in central Gaza, described as a “US-Zionist checkpoint”.
In a statement on Saturday, Hamas said the deadly shooting exposed the “ugly criminal face” of the occupation, accusing Israel of deliberately using hunger as a weapon of war and turning aid distribution points into “mass death traps”.
“The Netanyahu government is using humanitarian aid and starvation as a tool to kill, humiliate, and torment innocent civilians,” the statement read.
Hamas described the attack as “an unprecedented crime of brutality in the modern era and a flagrant violation of human values and international law”.
Witnesses reported chaos and panic as gunfire erupted near the aid checkpoint, targeting already starving civilians. Graphic images and footage show bodies strewn across the ground amidst food parcels.
Hamas also condemned what it called “the international silence” in the face of the near-daily massacres unfolding in Gaza for almost 20 months. It argued that the repeated targeting of civilians at aid distribution points amounts to “complicity in war crimes that history will not forgive”.
The Movement renewed its appeal to the international community, Arab states, and Islamic countries to urgently intervene to stop the “ongoing massacres” and to “break the siege” on Gaza by allowing humanitarian aid to flow through United Nations-approved mechanisms.
The killing of aid-seeking civilians adds to growing international condemnation of Israel’s use of starvation tactics, which human rights organizations warn could constitute genocide under international law.
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