Israel Calls The Majority Of Victims Of The Aid Convoy Tragedy For Being Stepped On, Palestine Calls Bullets

Israeli military land operations in Gaza. (Source: Israel Defense Forces)

JAKARTA - The Israeli military said on Sunday most of the Palestinians who died last week when crowds gathered near aid convoys in Gaza were being trampled on, while local health officials said victims who were taken to hospital were exposed to large-caliber ammunition.

Pressure is rising on Israel over the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians, in an incident in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, where mobs surrounded a convoy of aid trucks and soldiers opened fire, prompting several countries to support UN calls for an investigation.

Palestinian health officials said more than 100 people were killed in the early incident that morning, most of them were shot by Israeli forces. Instead, Israeli officials have rejected the figures given by Palestine, but have not provided their own estimates.

On Sunday, Israel's main military spokesman Rear Admiral Danielani announced the results of an initial review, repeating Israel's earlier statement that most of the victims were trampled to death when the mob stormed the aid truck.

In addition, "several people" were targeted when soldiers opened fire on people who approached them after the incident in a manner that indicated a direct threat, he said, adding an independent investigation had been opened but did not provide further details.

Paragraphi's statement showed several people were killed by Israeli gunfire after soldiers opened early warning shots, but he gave no details or figures.

"After warning shots were fired to disperse the raids and after our troops began to retreat, several looters approached our troops and gave them direct threats. According to preliminary reviews, the army retaliated against several people," he explained.

Meanwhile, Batuasem Salah, a member of the Emergency Committee of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said there were more than 1,000 victims, killed and injured, as a result of the incident and he rejected Israeli review findings.

"Any attempt to claim that people were martyred because the density of residents or being hit was not true. Those who were injured and martyred were the result of being shot with heavy-caliber bullets," he told Reuters.

Separately, Giorgios Petropoulos, head of the UN Coordinator's sub-office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza, who visited the Shifa hospital in Gaza on Thursday and Sunday, said he had seen "a very large and overcrowded emergency room" at the hospital where many injured people were being treated.

"There were a lot of people who were seriously injured, there were a lot of surgery," he told Reuters.

"A surgeon told me he had to have 18 surgery on the first night," he said.

He said he had seen five or six people with gunshot wounds, including a young man being shot in the right chest who then took him to the hospital because there was no ambulance. In addition, a small number of people suffered injuries from falling or being trampled in the dark.

As a result of the incident, many of Israel's closest allies, including the United States, have called for an investigation, underscoring the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the increasingly chaotic conditions in which a small amount of aid reaching the enclave was distributed.