Aid trucks used to enter Gaza's Nuseirat — Red Crescent on Israeli deceit

Civil defense teams try to extinguish the fire that broke out after Israeli attacks on Nuseirat camp in Gaza on June 08, 2024. (Photo/AA)

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said that Israeli troops used an aid truck to infiltrate central Gaza's Nuseirat camp where they massacred some 274 Palestinians and wounded nearly 700 others before taking back four Israeli hostages.

The Red Cross's local Palestinian branch in a statement on Monday warned of the danger of the occupation forces' use of such a vehicle to infiltrate the camp.

"The occupation forces deceived people by disguising themselves under the cover of aid that civilians desperately need amid their suffering from severe food insecurity," the statement said.

"This endangers the safety of relief teams."

Such a precedent raises the possibility of humanitarian aid workers being perceived with suspicion in the future, Nebal Farsakh, a spokeswoman for PRCS, told the AFP news agency.

'Overwhelmed hospitals'

Asked about the Red Crescent's statement, the Israeli army referred AFP to a June 8 tweet in which spokesman Avichay Adraee dismissed the allegations that forces entered Nuseirat in aid trucks as "lies".

Israeli military carried out a massacre on Saturday before managing to bring back four hostages held in Gaza since October 7.

Almog Meir Jan, 22, Noa Argamani, 26, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, were taken hostage from the Nova festival on October 7.

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, said in a statement on Monday that the flow of casualties from the Israeli operation "has greatly overwhelmed the limited capacities of hospitals" in the area.

Israeli forces have disguised themselves as civilian aid workers to reach targets in the past too.

In January, undercover agents, some dressed as medics, shot dead three Palestinian fighters in Ibn Sina hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

Hamas freed more than 100 Israeli captives during a November truce, and after Saturday's mission, 116 hostages remain in Gaza, although the army says 41 of them are dead. Palestinian officials say most of them were killed in indiscriminate Israeli bombardment that has flattened 90 percent of Gaza's infrastructure.

Genocidal war

On October 7, Hamas conducted an unprecedented raid on Israeli military sites and settlements that were once Arab farms and villages, claiming it was a response to Israeli aggression against the Al Aqsa Mosque, escalating settler violence in the occupied West Bank, and to thrust the Palestinian cause back into global focus. In a meticulously planned offensive, Hamas fighters infiltrated up to 22 locations outside Gaza, reaching towns and communities as far as 24 kilometres from the Gaza fence. They overpowered many Israeli soldiers as the startled military scrambled to respond.

The fighters took approximately 240 hostages, including Israeli soldiers and civilians. Some of these captives were later exchanged for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and only a few were rescued by the Israeli army.

Israel unleashed a relentless bombardment on Gaza from air, land, and sea. The onslaught has claimed the lives of over 37,000 Palestinians till date, predominantly women and children, left more than 84,000 wounded, and displaced the majority of Gaza's 2.4 million residents, turning the tiny coastal enclave into a scene of unparalleled devastation.

UN experts say there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide (in Gaza) has already been met. Earlier this year the International Court of Justice found it is plausible that Israel's invasion in Gaza amounts to genocide.

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Source: TRT