GAZA, Aug 31 (Reuters/AFP): An Israeli air strike on an aid convoy carrying food and fuel to a Gaza hospital killed four Palestinians on Thursday, US-based aid group Anera said as Israel claimed they were "armed assailants," which the group denied.
The four Palestinians were in the lead vehicle of an Anera aid convoy bound for the Emirati Red Crescent Hospital in Rafah in southern Gaza, the aid group said in a statement on Friday.
Soon after the convoy left the Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, four Palestinians from the community "took control of the leading vehicle, citing concern that the route was unsafe and at risk of being looted," Anera said.
"Israeli authorities allege that the lead car was carrying numerous weapons. Every initial report from those at the scene indicate that no weapons were present," the organization said.
A plan agreed with Israeli authorities called for unarmed security guards in the convoy. The four had not been vetted nor coordinated with Israeli authorities, but the convoy did not perceive them as a threat, Anera said.
Anera said there was no warning or communication before the Israeli airstrike. No Anera staff were injured. After the four were killed, the rest of the convoy delivered the aid, it said.
In a statement quoted by multiple media outlets, the Israel Defense Forces said: "A number of armed assailants seized control of the vehicle in the front of the convoy... and began to lead it."
"After the takeover and further verification that a precise strike on the armed assailants' vehicle could be carried out, a strike was conducted," the IDF said.
UN aid official questions
world's 'humanity'
A top UN aid official on Thursday questioned "what has become of our basic humanity," as the war in Gaza rages and humanitarian operations struggle to respond.
Joyce Msuya, acting head of the UN's humanitarian office (OCHA), said that "we cannot plan more than 24 hours in advance because we struggle to know what supplies we will have, when we will have them or where we will be able to deliver."
"Civilians are hungry. They are thirsty. They are sick. They are homeless. They have been pushed beyond... what any human being should bear," she told the Security Council.
Msuya's comments came after the UN had to halt the movement of aid and aid workers within Gaza on Monday due to a new Israeli evacuation order for the Deir al-Balah area, which had become a hub for its workers.
"More than 88 percent of Gaza's territory has come under an (Israeli) order to evacuate at some point," Msuya said, adding that civilians, "in a state of limbo," were being forced into an area equivalent to just 11 percent of the Gaza Strip.
"The evacuation orders appear to defy the requirements of international humanitarian law," she added.
Israel's war against Palestinian militant group Hamas has come under increasing scrutiny as the civilian death toll rises, but international powers including the United States have failed so far to help negotiate a ceasefire.
