Bread Soaked in Blood: Survivors Recount Gaza’s Flour Massacre

“What we went through was horrible. We ventured out in a quest to get some flour and food aid, but Israeli occupation tanks opened machine gun fire on us and shelled us, and they poured down rocket fire on us from their warplanes. Many of us lived through this by sheer miracle.”

It is with a great deal of sadness and pain that Yusri al-Ghoul recounts the hardships of searching for food in Gaza City and the north of the Strip.

The population of Gaza City today barely stands at 700,000, and its inhabitants have been reduced to targets for the Israeli war machine, which is directly targeting them with fire and depriving them of food.

A few days ago, the occupation committed a massacre against the people of Gaza City in which upward of 110 Palestinians were murdered and 760 others were injured, most of whom are in critical condition, after they were targeted on the al-Nabulsi roundabout on al-Rasheed Street, west of Gaza City.

The massacre took place as thousands of Palestinians were waiting for trucks carrying flour and humanitarian aid. They had spent a whole night out in the open air in the hope of getting anything to feed their starving women and children and boost their morale to hang on to their patience and steadfastness.

Deliberate targeting

Yusri al-Ghoul is one of the massacre’s survivors. He tells  our reporter that Israeli occupation forces deliberately targeted thousands awaiting the aid trucks, with tanks first opening fire on them, followed by artillery and aircraft strikes.

He says he was one of those who had been given another chance at life, and the only reason was the great distance separating him from the aid trucks, further explaining that just as soon as the trucks arrived and the people approached them, the IOF opened fire on them, randomly and brutally.

Yusri and a few of his friends had gone to the al-Nabulsi roundabout the previous night to wait for the aid, hoping to get a bag of flour for their hungry families. He and his friends were not successful in getting any food, but they were some of the fortunate ones who got to get back to their families alive and without suffering from any injuries. Still, they returned disappointed and saddened for their fellow citizens who were killed trying to secure food for their families.

Yusri stresses that this wasn’t the first time that Israeli occupation soldiers targeted Palestinians on al-Rasheed Street, but the fact that all of this was caught on camera was what left this great impact on the world.

Bread dipped in blood 

Getting food, flour, in particular, has become a long-fetched goal soaked with blood, as thousands go on a quest every day looking for any food that would lessen their family’s suffering amid the famine in Gaza, yet most of them return unsuccessful in these nearly impossible missions, Mohammad Awawdeh says.

Mohammad’s brother was killed in al-Rasheed Street Flour massacre, as they had both been there in the hope of securing a bag of flour when Israeli tanks opened machine gun fire on them. “Instead of coming back to my family with a bag of flour, I came back with my brother in a burial shroud,” he says. 

Mohammad told our reporters how he and his brother scour the neighborhoods of Gaza every day in search of food or flour but end up with little food at the end of the day. On most days, they find nothing.

Complete blockade

“Israel” has imposed a complete blockade on Gaza, especially its northern region, via military checkpoints it had erected in all the regions west of Gaza City, encircling it from the east and the north through what it calls a “security buffer zone,” referring to the area of the Strip the occupation is out to seize.

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense, warned of the famine that threatens the lives of thousands in the Strip, particularly its northern region and Gaza City, as “Israel” is preventing the entry of flour and humanitarian aid to these regions.

The occupation is waging a war of starvation against the people of Gaza and its north, and thousands are at risk of dying at any moment because of the airtight Israeli blockade, which deprives the people of Gaza of basic necessities, he told our reporters.

He further said that “occupation forces are deliberately shelling civilians looking for food. This crime of theirs on al-Rasheed Street was not the first and will most certainly not be the last,” demanding an immediate international response to bring the occupation to justice for its systemic arbitrary starvation of thousands of civilians.

Raed al-Nemes, the spokesperson for the Red Crescent Society, called what is currently happening in Gaza a “true famine,” further describing the acts the occupation is committing against thousands of Palestinians as a war crime that demands international accountability, especially as hunger is spreading and diseases are running rampant.

He further told our reporters that, “The humanitarian aid entering Gaza and its north is scarce, and even that is being shelled and targeted by the Israeli forces.”

“Rescue teams working in the Strip have been deliberately targeted to prevent aid from reaching the people,” he concluded his statement saying.