Opinion: For humanity's sake, Israel's slaughter of those queuing for food must be punished

If hungry people in Ukraine had been shot at and killed while queuing for food, the West would have rightly called it a war crime.

Likewise, if troops opened fire in Syria, the US and UK would rightly condemn it as another atrocity committed in this context.

However, when people are queuing for food in Gaza - where the UN has warned of the worst famine it has ever recorded - the US instead noted it would "complicate peace talks".

Early on 29 March, starving Palestinians were queueing for long-awaited deliveries of food in Gaza City’s al-Rasheed Street when Israeli forces opened fire on them. According to Gaza health officials, a minimum of 112 people were killed and 280 injured, the majority of whom appear to have been shot.

Fares Afana, head of the ambulance service at Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital, said medics found “dozens or hundreds” of bodies lying on the ground once they reached the scene. He said some wounded had to be carried to hospitals on donkey carts as there were not enough ambulances to take all the dead and wounded.

There are counterclaims that only a small group were fired upon and the majority were killed in the crush from the resulting panic - caused by the shooting. Either way, people would not have died if desperately hungry people had not been fired upon while queuing for food.

Read more: For humanity's sake, Israel's slaughter of those queuing for food must be punished by Othman Moqbel