By Adel Zaanoun with Robbie Corey-Boulet in Jerusalem

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES – World leaders called on Friday (March 1) for an investigation and a ceasefire nearly five months into the Gaza war, a day after dozens of desperate Palestinians were killed rushing an aid convoy.

Israeli troops opened fire as Palestinian civilians scrambled for food supplies during a chaotic melee on Thursday (Feb 29) which the territory’s health ministry said killed more than 100 people in Gaza City.

The deaths came after a World Food Program (WFP) official had warned: “If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza.”

The Israeli military said a “stampede” occurred when thousands of Gazans surrounded the convoy of 38 aid trucks, leading to dozens of deaths and injuries, including some who were run over.

An Israeli source acknowledged troops had opened fire on the crowd, believing it “posed a threat”.

Gaza’s health ministry called it a “massacre” and said 112 people were killed and more than 750 wounded.

The deaths helped push the total number of Palestinian war dead in Gaza to 30,228, mostly women and children, according to the ministry’s latest toll.

Overnight, 83 people were killed in strikes, the ministry said.

The war began on October 7 with an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, Israeli figures show.

Israel’s military says 242 soldiers have died in Gaza since ground operations began in late October.

“The Israeli army must fully investigate how the mass panic and shooting could have happened,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on social media platform X.

Her French counterpart Stephane Sejourne said, “there will have to be an independent probe to determine what happened”.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, also writing on X, said “every effort must be made to investigate what happened and ensure transparency”.

US President Joe Biden – whose country provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel – said Washington was checking “two competing versions” of the incident.

Aerial footage of the incident made clear “just how desperate the situation on the ground is”, a US State Department spokesman said, adding that Washington was pushing Israel to allow in more aid.

In the face of the mounting disorder in north Gaza, some Arab and European governments have started air-dropping relief supplies.

A US official confirmed that Washington too was considering all options, but warned airdrops “are a drop in the bucket” compared to the level of need.

The aid convoy deaths dealt a blow to efforts to broker a new truce in Gaza to get more aid in and the remaining Israeli hostages released by their Palestinian captors.

Militants took about 250 hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 that Israel says are presumed dead.

Asked whether the convoy incident would complicate the truce negotiations, Biden said: “I know it will”.

Late on Thursday, he spoke with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, the two Arab states which have been acting as go-betweens alongside the United States.

They discussed the “tragic and alarming” aid incident in Gaza, saying it “underscored the urgency of bringing negotiations to a close as soon as possible,” the White House said.

The Qatari foreign ministry condemned “the heinous massacre committed by the Israeli occupation” and called for “urgent international action” to halt the fighting in Gaza.

“China urges the relevant parties, especially Israel, to cease fire and end the fighting immediately,” said foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.

While the situation is particularly acute in north Gaza, civilians across the territory are struggling to find food, water and medical care, including in the far-southern city of Rafah where around 1.4 million people have sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.

Despite repeated international calls to hold off, Israel is threatening to send ground troops into Rafah to press its manhunt for Hamas leaders and eliminate its remaining forces.

Accounts conflicted on what exactly unfolded in Gaza City.

A witness, declining to be named for safety reasons, said the violence began when thousands of people rushed towards aid trucks, leading soldiers to open fire when “people came too close” to tanks.

Hossam Abu Safiya, director at Gaza City’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, said all the casualties admitted there were hit by “bullets and shrapnel from occupation forces”.

Israeli armed forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said troops had fired “a few warning shots” to try to disperse a “mob” that had “ambushed” the aid trucks.

“Thousands of Gazans” swarmed the trucks, “violently pushing and even trampling other Gazans to death, looting the humanitarian supplies,” he said.

When the crowd got too big, he said the convoy tried to retreat and “the unfortunate incident resulted in dozens of Gazans killed and injured”.

Aerial images released by the Israeli army showed what it said were scores of people surrounding aid trucks in the city.

It is not the first time that aid convoys have been looted in northern Gaza, where residents have been reduced to eating animal fodder to stave off starvation.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said no UN agency had been involved in Thursday’s convoy, and called the incident “another day from hell”.

Hagari said the aid distribution was organized by private contractors.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under increasing pressure over the captives.

On Friday, relatives and supporters of the hostages rallied outside the US embassy branch in Tel Aviv in a call for help to secure their release.

At another protest in the city on Thursday night, Alon Lee Green, 36, said things were at a crossroads.

“Either we are going into an eternal war that will never stop or we’re going to a diplomatic agreement, an Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

-Agence France-Presse