Israeli forces killed at least 115 Palestinians in Gaza, including 92 people who were slaughtered when they were trying to have food at Crossing Zikim in the North and aid points to Rafah and Khan Younis in the south.
The murders came on Sunday, when the continuous headquarters of Israel of Gaza have aggravated a hunger crisis, the health authorities announcing at least 19 dead from famine in the last day.
In Zikim, Israeli forces have shot at least 79 Palestinians, according to medical sources, while large crowds gathered there in the hope of obtaining flour from a help of the United Nations.
Nine others were killed near an aid point in Rafah, where 36 other people lost their lives 24 hours earlier. Four others were killed near a second aid site in Khan Younis, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense.
Rizeq Betaar, a Palestinian who survived Zikim’s attack, helped a young victim in the hospital.
“We saw this young man lying on the ground, and we were those who bike him. We are trying to help him help. But there is nothing,” said Betaar. “There is no ambulances, no food, no life, no way to live. We are barely hooking. “
Another survivor, Osama Marouf, also helped to transport an old man who was injured by bullet.
“We brought this old man from Zikim. He went just to get flour,” said Marouf. “I tried to save him on the bike – I don’t even want the flour anymore, he’s like my father, this old man. May God give me the strength to do good. And that these difficulties do not last much longer. ”
The Israeli army recognized the attack, saying that it had fired “warning boost to suppress an immediate threat to the troops” in the north of Gaza. However, he did not provide evidence or details on the alleged threat.
“New levels of despair”
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) published a statement that challenged the Israeli account, saying that the victims were simply people “trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of famine”.
He said the Israeli shots occurred just after a convoy of 25 trucks with food aid crossed the Zikim point.
“Shortly after spending the final control point … The convoy has met large crowds of civilians waiting for an impatient access to desperately necessary food supplies,” said the agency. “While the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd was criticized by Israeli tanks, elite shooters and other shots.”
Violence has occurred despite Israel’s insurance that the operational conditions of humanitarian agencies in Gaza would improve, said WFP, including that the armed forces are not present or engage along the ways of convoy.
“Gaza’s hunger crisis has reached new levels of despair. People die from a lack of humanitarian aid. Malnutrition increases with 90,000 women and children with an urgent need for treatment. Almost one in three people do not eat for days, ”warned the WFP.
“Only a massive increase in food aid distributions can stabilize this situation in a spiral, calm anxieties and rebuild trust in communities that more food is coming,” he added.
The Gaza Ministry of Health echoes this warning, saying that at least 19 Palestinians died of hunger on Sunday and that hundreds of others suffering from malnutrition could soon die.
“We warn that hundreds of people whose body wasted at risk of imminent death due to hunger,” said a ministry spokesperson.
The ministry added that at least 71 children have died of malnutrition since the start of the war in 2023, while 60,000 others show signs of severe undernourishment.
The Hind Khoudary of Tel Aviv Tribune, reporting from Central Gaza, said that a 35-day baby in Gaza City and a four-month-old child in Deir El-Balah died from malnutrition at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.
“The mother was touching her body saying:” I’m sorry I can’t feed you, “said Khoudary.
“Parents go to the GHF (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation GHF (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) sites to risk being killed or leaving their children hungry. We met a mother who gives her children just to fill their stomachs. She can’t afford flour – and when she could, she couldn’t find it. ”
“Go to the unknown”
In southern Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 13 people pending food near the distribution points managed by the GHF supported by the United States in Rafah and Khan Younis.
The murders have brought the number of Palestinians killed on or near GHF sites for almost 1,000 people.
Ahmed Hassouna, who was trying to bring food from the GHF help site, said that an Israeli reservoir “came to us.”
“There was also a young man with me – and they started to pull us gas. They killed us with the gas. We barely breathed, they smothered us with the gas,” Hassouna told Tel Aviv Tribune.
The UN and humanitarian aid agencies have long denounced the GHF for its “armament” of aid to Gaza and called on Israel to allow the entry of other humanitarian assistance, which was prevented from entering the enclave.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said Gaza staff sent desperate messages to lack of food.
“All artificials, in total impunity. Food is available just a few kilometers,” he wrote on X, adding that UNRWA has enough border supplies to feed Gaza for three months.
But Israel has been blocking help since March 2.
The American Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also denounced the continuous attacks of Israel against the seekers of aid.
“The climbing of massacres of hungry Palestinian women, children and men murdered with weapons provided by the United States and with the complicity of our government when they are desperately looking for food to feed their family is not only a human tragedy, it is also an act of accusation of a Western political order which allowed this genocide of genocide by inaction and indifference,” said Nihad Awad, Cair’s Executive Director.
“Western governments cannot claim ignorance. They look in real time because innocent civilians are intentionally hungry, forcibly moved and massacred – and choose to do nothing. History will have long remembered the indifference of the Western world to forced famine, ethnic cleaning and genocide in Gaza. ”
The doctors of Gaza, on the other hand, said that there had been an increase in people who arise in weak and poorly fed hospitals, but that they do not have the resources necessary to treat them.
Dr. Mohammed Abu Afash, director of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society in Gaza, told Tel Aviv Tribune that women and children are collapsing from hunger.
“We are heading towards the unknown. Malnutrition in children has reached its highest levels,” he said, warning of an imminent disaster if the aid is not immediately authorized.
