Israeli forces killed 59 Palestinians across Gaza, at least 17 of which tried to operate food on controversial United States and Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the last deaths in areas that criticisms struck like “human slaughterhouses”.
Doctors at Al-Awda Hospital in Central Gaza told Tel Aviv Tribune on Sunday that at least three people had been killed and that dozens injured by an Israeli fire while they were trying to approach a GHF site near the so-called Netzarim Corridor, desperately looking for meager plots of food for their hungry families.
At least 10 other aid seekers have been reported killed and more than 50 injured in southern Gaza. Many dead and injured were taken to the Rafah Cross hospital in Rafah, doctors said.
“People have told us that the Israeli army did not warn the hungry crowds before opening fire, which led to devastating civilian victims,” Tareq Azzoum of Tel Aviv Tribune de Deir El-Balah reported in the center of Gaza.
Ahmed Al-Masri, who left one of the helping points, described shots as “a trap”.
On Sunday, several Israeli air raids also hammered southern Gaza, killing at least 12 Palestinians there. Seven other people were killed when an Israeli strike targeted a group of people in the city of Beit Lahiya north of the enclave, doctors said.
At least eight people were killed by an Israeli strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of Gaza. The Palestinian agency Wafa reported that the attack on the residential building had also injured several people.
The alarming levels of hunger and the spectrum of famine pushed people to the few food distribution points in Gaza despite the severe danger involved. But Israeli forces responded with elite shooters and bombing. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed in almost daily mass fire, the GHF accused of weapons aid.
On Saturday, at least 79 Palestinians were killed, many of them looking for help. Doctors of the Al-Awda and Al-Aqsa hospitals of the Central Gaza said that at least 15 people had been killed when they were trying to approach the GHF aid distribution site near the Netzarim corridor.
There was no comments from the Israeli army concerning Sunday attacks.
‘Executive sites’
The GHF began to distribute aid to Gaza at the end of May after Israel has partially lifted a total blockage of three months of food, drugs and other essential items.
Abu Azzoum said that the Palestinians were starting to see GHF’s distribution centers as “execution sites”, considering the repeated attacks there.
The GHF said its help sites had been closed on Saturday. But witnesses said that thousands of people had gathered near the sites, desperate for food, because the blockade and the punishing military campaign of Israel led the territory to the edge of the famine.
Earlier this month, the operations of the group’s aid distribution centers were also temporarily interrupted following several incidents of fatal violence, in which Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian aid seekers.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said in a statement on Saturday that at least 274 people had so far been killed, and more than 2,000 injured, distribution sites near the aid since the GHF operations in Gaza.
The Israeli army admitted to having shot aid seekers, but said it only opened fire when “suspects” have moved away from a stipulated route to the GHF distribution site.
Hamas has accused Israel “of employing hunger as a weapon of war and transforming the distribution sites for aid into mass traps of innocent civilians”.
Israel and the United States say that the new system is intended to replace the United Nations managed network. They accused Hamas, without providing evidence, siphoning unprecedented aid and put it back to finance its military activities.
Israel has also admitted to support armed gangs in Gaza, known for criminal activities, to undermine Hamas. These groups were blamed for a looting of help.
UN officials deny Hamas have diverted significant amounts of aid and said that the new system is unable to meet mounting needs and also bypassing these organizations with decades of experience in the distribution of aid throughout the territory to the entire population.
The UN also qualified the distribution of aid from the GHF as inadequate, dangerous and violation of humanitarian principles.
“GHF, I think it is right to say, was, from a humanitarian point of view in principle, a failure,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations Bureau for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday. “They do not do what a humanitarian operation should do, which provides help to people where they are, in a safe and secure manner.”
The War of Israel against Gaza killed nearly 55,300 Palestinians, most civilians, and has flattened a large part of the densely populated Gaza Strip, which houses more than two million people, most of whom are moved and confronted with acute hunger.
