Counselors and campers walk to closing campfire, Thursday, June 20, 2024, at YMCA Camp Kern in Oregonia, Ohio. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
The AP journalist positioned some distance away heard gunfire and rounds of tank fire. Smoke could be seen rising from where one round impacted. He saw a military helicopter overhead firing flares.“There was no order, the people rushed to take, there was shooting, and we fled,” said Hosni Abu Amra, who had been waiting to receive aid. “We fled without taking anything that would help us get through this hunger.”
“It was chaos,” said Ahmed Abu Taha, who said he heard gunfire and saw Israeli military aircraft overhead. “People were panicked.”Crowds were seen running from the site. A few managed to secure aid boxes — containing basic items like sugar, flour, pasta and tahini — but the vast majority left empty-handed.In a statement, GHF said that because of the large number of Palestinians seeking aid, staff at the hub followed the group’s safety protocols and “fell back” to allow them to dissipate, then later resumed operations.
A spokesperson for the group told the AP that no shots were fired from GHF. Speaking on condition of anonymity in line with the group’s rules, the spokesperson said the protocols aim at “avoiding loss of life, which is exactly what happened.”GHF uses armed private contractors to guard the hubs and the transportation of supplies. The hub is also close to Israeli military positions in the Morag Corridor, a band of territory across the breadth of Gaza that divides Rafah from the rest of the territory.
GHF has set up four hubs around Gaza to distribute food, two of which began operating on Monday — both of them in the Rafah area.
The U.N. and other humanitarian groups have refused to participate in GHF’s system, saying it violates humanitarian principles. They say it can be used by Israel to forcibly displace the population by requiring them to move near the few distribution hubs or else face starvation – a violation of international law. They have also opposed the use of facial recognition to vet recipients.The crime of aggression is the planning and execution of a large-scale military invasion of another country.
“The crime of aggression is sometimes referred to as the ‘mother of all other crimes’ because it precedes all of the other crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity, even genocide,” Iva Vukusic, an international law expert at the University of Utrecht, told The Associated Press.“You don’t prosecute foot soldiers for aggression,” she added. The tribunal plans to pursue cases against around 20 to 30 high-ranking officials.
A dozen Nazi leaders including Hermann Göring and Rudolf Hess were convicted of what was then called “a crime against peace” during the Nuremberg trials following WWII. That was the last time anyone has been convicted of aggression.International law grants the so-called troika — consisting of a country’s head of state, head of government and foreign affairs minister — immunity from prosecution while they are in office.