ISRAELI snipers were accused of killing fleeing Palestinian civilians in Gaza City today.
This comes as the United States announced the resumption of 500-pound bomb shipments to Israel.
Palestinians who fled Gaza City after the latest Israeli evacuation order say snipers shot dead civilians near Yarmouk stadium.
Exact numbers of the dead are as yet unclear but the shooting comes after Palestinians were ordered by the Israelis to evacuate to the south as it steps up its offensive across the enclave.
One eyewitness told the Al Jazeera news network that he was sitting near Yarmouk stadium when he saw an Israeli sniper shoot a man on a bicycle while he was carrying canned food.
He said: “The sniper shot him directly.
“We were unable to move his body. Even the paramedics were unable to access the street. They couldn’t retrieve or evacuate the body of this person.”
Another eyewitness said she wanted to pass through Yarmouk stadium but was told there were bodies of Palestinians in the streets who were shot by Israeli snipers.
She said: “We came to ask for help from the paramedics and firefighters to at least take the dead bodies so they wouldn’t remain in the street. They need to be buried.”
Multiple people said they saw a man walking in the street shot in the head by a sniper in a tower. Several people later managed to retrieve the body.
Israeli authorities have repeatedly ordered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to leave areas they had previously declared were safe to return to — in both northern and southern Gaza.
This is not the first time Israeli forces have been accused of sniper fire against civilians.
On Wednesday, Israel dropped leaflets warning civilians to leave the “dangerous combat zone,” days after ordering evacuations of the city’s Daraj, Tuffah and Old City neighbourhoods.
B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, labelled Israel’s orders to evacuate “absolute madness.”
In a post on social media on Wednesday, it said the international community must now intervene and “demand that Israel immediately stop the war.”
Meanwhile, the United States announced that it was resuming the shipping of 500-pound bombs to Israel, but claimed still to have concerns over supplying the even more destructive 2,000-pound bombs.
Speaking anonymously, the US official said: “We’ve been clear that our concern has been on the end-use of the 2,000-pound bombs, particularly for Israel’s Rafah campaign, which they have announced they are concluding.”
