Israeli forces have killed 23 Palestinians across Gaza, with at least 11 of them while they were trying to get food at aid sites operated by the United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), local authorities have said.
Medics at al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza on Sunday told Al Jazeera that at least three people were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire as they tried to approach a GHF site near the so-called Netzarim Corridor.
Two others were killed and more than 50 injured in a shooting at starving Palestinians near the GHF aid point in Rafah’s al-Mawasi area. The dead and the wounded were taken to the nearby Red Cross Hospital, according to medics.
Also, multiple Israeli air raids since dawn on Sunday killed at least 12 Palestinians in southern Gaza. Seven others were killed when an Israeli strike targeted a group of people in Beit Lahiya town in the north of the enclave, medics said.
Alarming levels of hunger have driven people to the few food distribution points in Gaza, but Israeli forces have responded with sniper fire and bombings. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in near-daily mass shootings, with the GHF accused of weaponising aid.
On Saturday, at least 79 Palestinians were killed, many of them while seeking aid. Medics at al-Awda and Al-Aqsa hospitals in central Gaza said at least 15 people were killed as they tried to approach the GHF aid distribution site near Netzarim Corridor.
There has been no comment from the Israeli military regarding Sunday’s attacks.
‘Execution sites’
The GHF began distributing aid in Gaza at the end of May after Israel partially lifted a three-month total blockade of food, medicines and other essential items.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said Palestinians are starting to see GHF distribution hubs as “execution sites”, considering the repeated attacks there.
The GHF said its aid sites were closed on Saturday. But witnesses said thousands of people had gathered near the sites anyway, desperate for food as Israel’s punishing blockade and military campaign have driven the territory to the brink of famine.
Earlier this month, operations at the group’s aid distribution hubs were also temporarily halted following several incidents of deadly 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 have so far been killed, and more than 2,000 wounded, near aid distribution sites since the GHF began operations in Gaza.
The Israeli military has admitted to shooting at aid seekers, but claimed it opened fire only when “suspects” deviated from a stipulated route to the GHF distribution site.
Hamas, which rejects Israeli charges that it steals aid, has accused Israel of “employing hunger as a weapon of war and turning aid distribution sites into traps of mass deaths of innocent civilians”.
The United Nations has also labelled the GHF aid distribution as inadequate, dangerous, and a violation of humanitarian principles.
“GHF, I think it’s fair to say, has been, from a principled humanitarian standpoint, a failure,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters in Geneva on Friday. “They are not doing what a humanitarian operation should do, which is providing aid to people where they are, in a safe and secure manner.”
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed nearly 55,300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and has flattened much of the densely populated Strip, home to more than two million people, most of whom are displaced and facing acute hunger.
