I.D.F. Videos Add to Confusion Over Gazans Killed at Aid Site

Thousands of desperately hungry civilians in northern Gaza gathered on the street before dawn on Thursday, hoping to find food on a humanitarian convoy. Instead, hundreds were killed and injured trying to get aid from the trucks, according to Gazan health officials. Local hospital staff said scores were killed or wounded by gunfire. The Israel Defense Forces claim that most of the victims were trampled or run over by vehicles, and that their soldiers only fired at a group of people who were threatening their forces. Israeli officials declined to provide unedited footage of the incident. The fragments of drone footage they released only add to the confusion around the series of events that killed and wounded so many Gazans. I.D.F. footage shows hundreds of civilians surrounding aid trucks on the coastal Al-Rashid Road in Gaza City. Throngs of people crowd around each truck, hoping to catch bags of food as they are tossed off the back. At one point, people in the crowd suddenly appear to panic and run in multiple directions. The I.D.F. says that this footage shows a mass stampede where Gazans are trampled, but the quality and short length of the clips makes it difficult to confirm these claims. Another clip in the I.D.F. footage shows two Israeli tanks a quarter-mile down the road and at least a dozen bodies lying nearby. The video doesn’t show the events that caused the casualties, but several people can be seen crawling and ducking for cover. Other video, filmed from a side street by an Al Jazeera camera crew, helps fill in some of the gaps about what unfolded on the ground. It captures shots fired as crowds of people scatter and take cover. It is not clear when this footage was filmed in relation to the I.D.F. drone video, but what is clearly visible is tracer ammunition, a specialized type of projectile that ignites to illuminate its path, which helps troops fine-tune their targeting. The source of the fire is not captured in the footage, but the trajectory shows it’s coming from the direction where Israeli military vehicles are positioned, just a half-mile away.