Dozens seeking food in Gaza killed as US envoy visits Israel
More than 50 Palestinians were killed and 400 others injured while waiting for food near a crossing in northern Gaza on Wednesday, a hospital says, as US special envoy Steve Witkoff visited Israel.
Footage showed casualties from the incident near the Zikim crossing being taken on carts to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
Gaza's Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said Israeli forces fired at the crowds gathered around aid lorries. The Israeli military said troops fired 'warning shots' but that it was 'not aware of any casualties'.
Witkoff met officials in Israel as he tried to salvage stalling ceasefire efforts and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Israeli officials have threatened that if there is no progress in the coming days on a ceasefire and hostage release deal, then they may take new punitive steps against Hamas. Israeli media reported that those could include annexing parts of Gaza.
It also reported that Witkoff would also visit aid distribution sites run by the controversial Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Shortly after his envoy's arrival in Israel, US President Donald Trump wrote on social media: 'The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!' Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry reported another seven malnutrition-related deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total to since the start of the war to 154.
It came a day after the UN-backed global food security experts warned that the 'worst-case scenario of famine' was 'currently playing out' among the 2.1 million population.
UN agencies have also said there is man-made, mass starvation in Gaza and blamed Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies to Gaza. But Israel has insisted that there are no restrictions on aid deliveries and that there is 'no starvation'.
Despite that, four days ago it implemented measures that it has said are aimed at helping the UN and its partners collect aid from crossings and distribute it within Gaza, including daily 'tactical pauses' in military operations in three areas and the creation of what it calls 'designated humanitarian corridors'.
The UN's humanitarian office has said the tactical pauses do not allow for the continuous flow of supplies required to meet the immense needs of the population, and that desperately hungry crowds continue to offload supplies from lorries as they pass through Israeli crossings.
The director of al-Shifa hospital, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, told the BBC on Thursday morning that it had received the bodies of 54 people who were killed in the incident in the Zikim area, as well as 412 people who were injured.
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