In its statement on Friday, the military said about 12,000 Palestinians had gathered around the aid trucks and began taking the supplies.”During the course of the looting, incidents of significant harm to civilians occurred from the stampede and people being run over by the trucks,” the army said.At that time, “dozens of Gazans advanced towards nearby IDF (Israeli army) troops, up to several metres (yards) from them, and thereby posed a real threat to the forces at that point,” it said.The military said troops “fired cautionary fire in order to distance the suspects,” and after they continued to advance, “the troops fired precisely towards a number of suspects to remove the threat.”The announcement came more than five months into its ongoing war against the Hamas militant group in Gaza.The war began on October 7 when Hamas launched a devastating attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.During the attack, Gaza militants also took about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages, some of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes 99 hostages remain alive in Gaza and that 31 have died.Israel’s military responded to the attack with an offensive in Gaza that has killed at least 30,878 people in the Palestinian territory, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry.
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