As Biden looks the other way, Gaza death toll hits 30,000

IsraelPalestineNews.org: Massacre as Gazans try to reach aid truck; Palestinian journalist’s wife, 3-yr-old son, 20 others killed in Israeli bombing of residential compound; Israeli forces kill youth in West Bank; six infants die due to malnutrition; 22-yr-old dies in Israeli prison; Gazans detained by IDF subject to forced disappearance, systematic torture; 1/4 of Gaza’s wells destroyed; Biden comes in second in Dem primary behind “Uncommitted”; Biden considering airdropping aid from U.S. military planes into Gaza; former CNN commentator John Avlon, running as Dem, says: “Now is the time to rally around Israel”

By IAK staff, from reports

Middle East Eye reports: At least 104 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded when Israeli forces fired on people at an aid convoy in Gaza City’s al-Rasheed Street on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said, calling the incident a “massacre”.

Residents of Gaza City had gathered seeking food, with the area completely cut off from aid by Israeli forces.

Hospitals in northern Gaza, most of which are out of commission because of repeated Israeli attacks, are reportedly unable to deal with the large influx of patients.

Reacting to the attack, Oxfam said it was “appalled” by the reports.

“Israel deliberately targeting civilians after starving them is a gross violation of international humanitarian laws and our humanity,” the international aid group said. “The risk of genocide is real.”

Ammar Helo, a 30-year-old Palestinian who survived the attack, told MEE he will still go down whenever aid trucks arrive, despite the risk to his life.

“We do not have bread, we do not have flour, we have been eating animal food,” he said. Survivors told MEE even animal feed was running out in the north.

“The shooting was indiscriminate, people shot in the head, in the foot, in the stomach,” he said. “One man was martyred, then run over by the tank.” See video in the tweet below.

Here is a video where you can hear the gunfire from Israeli troops that the IDF is purposefully not mentioning.pic.twitter.com/5lHd2OOS9T https://t.co/Y67zP11Ea0

— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) February 29, 2024

The White House is exploring the possibility of airdropping aid from U.S. military planes into Gaza as deliveries by land become increasingly difficult, four U.S. officials told Axios.

“The situation is really bad. We are unable to get enough aid [in] by truck, so we need desperate measures like airdrops,” one of four anonymous US officials said.

The fact that Biden is considering this move underscores the difficulty his administration has had in getting Israel to comply with its demands. The UN says that aid deliveries to and in the Strip have fallen by half this month, and the majority of reasons cited for this have much to do with Israel either blocking or hampering efforts to distribute life-saving food, water, medicine and fuel to people in extreme need.

U.S. officials admit that aid airdrops will have a limited effect since a military plane can only drop the amount of supplies equivalent to that transported by one or two trucks.

NOTE: Israel has on multiple occasions fired at individuals waiting for food aid (most recently killing over 100 at one time), at least once allegedly sending fake text messages to Gazans, telling them to assemble and then shooting at them when they did; Israel has also attacked food aid convoys and those who accompanied them several times. Additionally, Israeli citizens have blocked a border crossing for weeks with no meaningful attempt by Israel to reopen it.

NOTE: The US continues to provide Israel with $10 million a day in military aid (plus billions in emergency supplies) while it commits genocide and refuses to acquiesce to “demands” to properly distribute the thousands of truckloads of aid already waiting at the border or to minimize civilian casualties.

RECOMMENDED READING (the Guardian): ‘Different rules’: special policies keep US supplying weapons to Israel despite alleged abuses

Satellite images taken on February 21 showed more than a thousand aid trucks lined up waiting to enter the Rafah land crossing in Egypt, most of them waiting inside the logistics zone being established east of the crossing.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has said that one quarter of Gaza’s wells have been destroyed during the war, as Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip drives a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scope.

“There is no limit to the scale of humanitarian needs for people in Gaza. Diseases are rampant. Food production has come to a halt. Over 1/4 of water wells have been destroyed,” UNRWA said in a social media post. “Famine is looming. Hospitals have turned into battlefields. 1 million children face daily trauma.”

UNRWA: There is no limit to the scale of humanitarian needs for people in Gaza. Food production has come to a halt. Famine is looming.

WAFA reports: Six infants have died at the Kamal Adwan Hospital and the Al Shifa Medical Complex in the northern Gaza Strip due to severe malnutrition, as a result of the ongoing Israeli military blockade imposed on the region; seven others remain in critical condition, facing severe risks due to the prevailing drought and malnutrition.

Motasem A Dalloul, a Palestinian journalist based in Gaza City, has said that his pregnant wife and three-year-old son, along with 20 other people, have been killed in an Israeli bombardment of a residential compound.

Israel’s COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) has taken to ad hominem attacks and insults in response to reminders that Israel is not providing for Gazans’ needs as per ICJ demands:

The ICJ provisional measure states that Israel must "take immediate and *effective* measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services" not taunt, mock & endanger humanitarians trying to provide aid to 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza. 1/ https://t.co/66JHYJV2rI

— Tania Hary (@taniahary) February 28, 2024

Hundreds of aid trucks wait in line to cross into Gaza at the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings to a starving civilian population. There has not been a single day we have gotten the needed 500 trucks across. The system is broken and Israel could fix it for the sake of the innocent pic.twitter.com/dMb9gTbchJ

— Jan Egeland (@NRC_Egeland) February 28, 2024

Aruba Obeid asking voters to cast an uncommitted ballot instead of one for President Biden near a polling site in Dearborn, Mich., on Tuesday.

Al Jazeera reports: In Dearborn, Michigan, known as capital of Arab America, United States President Joe Biden came in second in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries. The winner: “Uncommitted.” The vote was hailed as “groundbreaking,” and showed the power of an organized effort to denounce his “unwavering” support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

And it wasn’t just Dearborn. Initial results, released early on Wednesday, reveal that more than 101,000 people across the state joined the protest campaign at the ballot box.

Some voters opted to cast their ballots for other candidates also to display displeasure with the incumbent president (both Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips have previously called for a ceasefire); many people chose not to participate in the process altogether.

Afterwards, the Biden campaign made a statement that did not mention the “uncommitted” campaign or Gaza.

Spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre says the Biden administration is pushing to secure a truce agreement between Israel and Hamas that would see the release of Israeli captives and allow aid into the Palestinian territory.

Regarding the “uncommitted” campaign’s massive showing, she said that Biden “appreciates folks getting out there, making their voices heard. But he also got more than 80 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary.” He ran virtually unopposed.

RECOMMENDED READING: ‘Groundbreaking’: Michigan’s uncommitted vote for Gaza should ‘worry’ Biden

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reports from Rafah: Over the last two days, no more than 20 trucks made it to the north. Compared with the needs of the 600,000 people there, that is nothing.

There is a fear that famine is going to kill a large number of people.

Here in Rafah city, it is so overcrowded that it’s hard to walk in the streets. That’s because there are many displaced people who have set up tents, and so many people queueing up for long hours for bread and water. There are also those queueing up in front of pharmacies and health facilities for supplies.

It’s been over a month since the ICJ ruling that required Israel to ensure the delivery of essential assistance to Palestinians. But so far, Israel has failed to do the bare minimum to comply with this.

Al Jazeera reports: According to Amani Sarhaneh of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, people being detained in the besieged coastal enclave are subject to forced disappearance by the Israeli military.

“Israel refuses to give out any information about the whereabouts or fate of the detainees,” Sarahneh told Al Jazeera, adding that released prisoners have spoken of “horrific torture practices carried out against them during their detention in Israeli camps”.

In addition to “systematic torture,” detainees are also being subject to malnourishment and cell overcrowding. They have had warm clothes and blankets taken away for winter; they are being prevented from taking daily showers; and are not being allowed any family or lawyer visitations, Sarahneh said.

Ten detainees have died in prison since October 7th.

This Gaza family has sought shelter in a demolished building.

WEST BANK – WAFA reports: A Palestinian youth was shot and killed by Israeli occupation live bullets at dawn during a military incursion into the town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus. Local sources said that Bashar Nihad Hanani was killed after being hit by a bullet in the abdomen. He was later rushed to a hospital in the city of Nablus, where he was pronounced dead.

Bashar Nihad Hanani, 25, was killed by Israeli occupation forces near Nablus.

WEST BANK – WAFA reports: Palestinian detainee Assef Al-Rifai, 22, has died in an Israeli prison, the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission today announced, bringing the total number of prisoners and detainees who have died in Israeli prisons since October 7 to ten.

Cancer-Stricken Palestinian prisoner Assef Al-Rifai has died in Israeli detention.

Former CNN commentator and author John Avlon, running as Dem to swing NY Congress seat, says: “Now is the time to rally around Israel.”

He hopes to join Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), two leading “progressives” who have unequivocally backed Israel.

While Israel kills thousands of women and children, John Avlon says “Now is the time to rally around Israel”

”About one in every 20 children, women and men in #Gaza are now dead or wounded.
𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙖𝙜𝙚 .”

– @volker_turk speaks at #HRC55 on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory pic.twitter.com/kmcO8zHNu6

— United Nations Geneva (@UNGeneva) February 29, 2024

Dr Ralph Wildes presents evidence for the Israeli genocide in Gaza. This is still an ongoing process, make sure it gets the attention it deserves. His testimony is scathing. pic.twitter.com/s8cww7oz89

— The Last American Vagabond (@TLAVagabond) February 29, 2024

Dr Ralph Wildes presents evidence for the Israeli genocide in Gaza. He is a member of the Faculty of Laws at University College London. He previously served on the Executive Board of the European Society of International Law, the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and at the International Law Association.

I’m leading a call w/ @RepAndreCarson & @RepRaskin to fully fund UNRWA, a vital agency that supports the welfare and survival of Palestinians.

Prohibiting U.S. funding for UNRWA is irresponsible and unacceptable. We must do all we can to push humanitarian aid into Gaza. pic.twitter.com/fYf71K9Vc5

— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) February 28, 2024

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – FEBRUARY 28:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – February 28: at least 30,446* (30,035 in Gaza* (over 12,660 children, 8,570 women), and at least 411 in the West Bank (100 children). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 38,066 Palestinian deaths.

About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.

About 2.2 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are facing Crisis, Emergency, or Famine levels of food insecurity.

Palestinian injuries from October 7 – February 28: at least 75,057** (including at least 70,457 in Gaza and 4,600 in the West Bank).

It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – February 28: ~1,391 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~574 were civilians, 373 or 337 were security and/or military forces, ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 240 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza;, 12 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.

NBC reports: “According to the latest available IDF data… nearly 1 in 5, or 17%, of all Israel’s losses have come not at the hands of Hamas but from mishaps on its own side.”

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.

Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.

For more news, go here and here. Broadcast news from the region is here.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org