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Ivan Zhakata Herald Correspondent

In another bloody massacre, Israeli warplanes and drones launched gunfire and missiles targeting a crowd of Palestinians who were waiting for delivery of food and humanitarian relief at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza, killing 20 and wounding 155 others.

The incident happened last Friday and has been condemned globally, including the Ambassador of Palestine to Zimbabwe, Dr Tamer Almassri.

He said Israel was deliberately starving and targeting Palestinians with military artillery at aid centres. Ambassador Almassri said more than 400 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on aid deliveries in recent weeks.

Hunger and severe malnutrition, he added, have become widespread in the Gaza Strip where about 2,2 million Palestinians are facing severe food shortages arising from the destruction and severe restrictions of the flow of food, medicines and other humanitarian aid by the Israeli occupation army.

Ambassador Almassri said the United States, which is led by President Joe Biden, was responsible for the continuation of the Nazi-like massacres being committed with US weapons and political support.

The US has also tried to shield Israel from international accountability, even when South Africa filed a case in the International Court of Justice against Israel because of its ongoing genocide war in Gaza.

“The so-called air dropping of aid has killed over five Palestinians and injured others after a parachute landing a humanitarian airdrop failed to open, bringing a pallet crashing down into a crowd of people waiting for food north of Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp,” said Ambassador Almassri.

“The air-dropping of aid is rather flashy propaganda than a humanitarian service. Instead, Israel should be forced to allow humanitarian aid to cross into Gaza through land borders and a ceasefire be implemented immediately to protect civilian lives. The so-called civilised world cannot claim to offer aid and at the same time fund Israel with weapons to carry out its genocide against Palestinians.

“These double standards should be stopped. The international community and the United Nations have failed to take action against the Israeli occupation army, which serves as a green light for committing more heinous crimes, within the framework of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian  people.”

Ambassador Almassri said Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The genocide war has pushed 90 percent of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while most of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

“The death toll from the Israeli occupation’s genocidal war has now risen to 31 400 martyrs, with 73 134 individuals injured since October 7,” Ambassador Almassri said.

Over 8 000 Palestinians are still under the rubble and are considered dead.