Jihad Abu Watfa was standing in the rubble along a dark stretch of coastal road southwest of Gaza City when he saw Israeli military tanks approaching. He began recording on his phone just as a heavy barrage of gunfire flashed before his eyes.
“We are now under siege, a tank is beside us and it’s shelling,” Abu Watfa could be heard saying in the video, which he shared with CNN.
The 27-year-old was surrounded by hundreds of other Palestinians who had gathered for an aid delivery on February 29 when Israeli soldiers accompanying the humanitarian convoy opened fire. More than 100 people were killed and 700 injured, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The tragedy, which has become known among Palestinians as the “Flour Massacre,” is one of the single deadliest mass casualty events to take place in Gaza since Israel launched its assault on the strip following Hamas’ October 7 terror attack. It came after more than a month of Israel denying aid into Gaza City and northern Gaza and followed what the United Nations has called “a pattern of Israeli attacks” on civilians desperately seeking food, amid unprecedented levels of starvation.
CNN collected testimonies and videos from 22 eyewitnesses, many of whom had traveled from other cities across Gaza in the hopes of finding something for their families to eat.
Read more of CNN's analysis of what happened the night a Gaza aid delivery in February turned deadly.