The UN Secretary General, Antonio Gutteres has called for an independent investigation into the deaths of more than 100 Palestinians during an aid delivery in Gaza.
At least 117 people were killed and more than760 injured on Thursday as they crowded around aid lorries.
Guterres condemned the incident and said desperate civilians need urgent help.
Hamas accused Israel of firing at civilians, but Israel said most died in a crush after it fired warning shots.
On Thursday international criticism of Israel mounted with French President Emmanuel Macron saying civilians had been “targeted by Israeli soldiers.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borell, described the incident as a totally unacceptable carnage.
“The desperate civilians in Gaza need urgent help, including those in the north where the UN has not been able to deliver aid in more than a week,” he said.
The UN Security Council scheduled a closed-door emergency meeting to discuss the incident, during which Algeria – the Arab representative of the body – put forward a draft statement blaming Israeli forces for opening fire.
While 14 of the Council’s 15 members supported the motion, the US envoy Robert Wood blocked it, saying the facts of the incident remained unclear.
Thursday’s incident took place at the Nabulsi roundabout, on the south-western edge of Gaza City.
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A convoy of 30 lorries carrying Egyptian aid was making its way north along what the Israel Defense Forces, IDF, described as a “humanitarian corridor” which it said its forces were securing.
IDF’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said civilians surrounded the convoy and people began climbing on the lorries.
“Some began violently pushing and even trampling other Gazans to death, looting the humanitarian supplies,” he said. “The unfortunate incident resulted in dozens of Gazans killed and injured.”
The IDF said they cautiously tried to disperse the mob with a few warning shots but pulled back when the hundreds became thousands and things got out of hand.
Hamas rejected the IDF’s account, citing “undeniable evidence of direct firing at citizens, including headshots aimed at immediate killing”.
The incident came hours before Gaza’s health ministry announced that more than 30,000 people, including 21,000 children and women, had been killed in Gaza since the start of the current conflict on 7 October. Some 7,000 were missing and 70,450 were injured, it said.
