UN agency says Israeli tanks and snipers opened fire on Gaza crowd seeking aid
The Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 80 people were killed in the incident.
The Israeli military has said it fired warning shots 'to remove an immediate threat', but has questioned the death toll reported by the Palestinians.
The accusation by a major aid agency that has had generally good working relations with Israel builds on descriptions by witnesses and others, who also said Israel opened fire on the crowd.
The bloodshed surrounding aid access highlights the increasingly precarious situation for people in Gaza who have been desperately seeking out food and other assistance, as the war shows no signs of ending.
Israel and Hamas are still engaged in ceasefire talks, but there appears to be no breakthrough and it is not clear whether any truce would bring the war to a lasting halt.
As the talks proceed, the death toll in the war-ravaged territory has climbed to more than 58,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Its count does not distinguish between militants and civilians but the ministry says more than half of the dead are women and children.
The ministry is part of the Hamas government, but the UN and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
Israel has meanwhile widened its evacuation orders for the territory to include an area that has been somewhat less hard-hit than others, indicating a new battleground may be opening up and squeezing Palestinians into ever tinier stretches of Gaza.
In northern Gaza on Sunday, the Health Ministry, witnesses and a UN official said Israeli forces opened fire toward crowds who tried to get food from a 25-truck convoy that had entered the hard-hit area.
The WFP statement, which said the crowd surrounding its convoy 'came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire,' backs up those claims.
The statement did not specify a death toll, saying only the incident resulted in the loss of 'countless lives.'
'These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation,' it said, adding that the incident occurred despite assurances from Israeli authorities that aid delivery would improve.
Part of those assurances, it said, was that armed forces would not be present nor engage along aid routes.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the WFP claims. Military spokesperson Lt Col Nadav Shoshani posted on X on Sunday that soldiers were told 'do not engage, do not shoot'.
Israel has not allowed international media to enter Gaza throughout the war, and the competing claims could not be independently verified.
Sunday's incident comes as Palestinian access to aid in the territory has been greatly diminished, and seeking that aid has become perilous.
A US and Israeli-backed aid system that has wrested some aid delivery from traditional providers like the UN has been wracked by violence and chaos as Palestinians heading toward its aid distribution sides have come under fire.
The group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, had said that the majority of the reported violence has not occurred at its sites.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
How Gaza's aid crisis broke Hamas and starved the Strip
When Israel launched its controversial US-backed aid plan for Gaza, it aimed to stop Hamas's alleged profiteering from the seizure and sale of humanitarian supplies. The aid delivery plan overseen by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has proved a blood-soaked catastrophe. The Gazan health authorities report that hundreds of people have been killed by gunfire as they queue for food at the GHF aid points controlled by Israeli troops and American contractors. It has also caused Hamas's worst financial crisis in decades, Israeli officials report. The terror group has been unable to pay its fighters or repair its network of tunnels and hideouts beneath the Strip. Cash shortages have also left Hamas reportedly unable to pay salaries for police or ministry employees. Money reserves amassed before, or during the early stages of, the war have run short, while Israeli strikes have devastated the leadership and fractured its grip on the besieged territory. Hamas for years received large sums from Iran, Qatar and others, and was also able to tax cross-border commerce. Israel has long alleged that Hamas also made money by seizing and selling international aid entering Gaza, though this has been denied by the United Nations and aid agencies. That income ended, officials say, when Israel imposed a blockade in March, and then began using the GHF, set up jointly by the US and Israel, to run aid hubs and bypass UN-run distributions. The UN, the European Commission and major international aid organisations have said they have no evidence that Hamas has systematically stolen their aid. The Israeli government has not provided proof. Twenty-eight countries including Britain, this week condemned the new aid arrangements, amid widespread reports of starvation, and hundreds of people being shot as they tried to get food. The countries' joint statement described as 'horrifying' the recent deaths of over 800 Palestinians who were seeking aid, according to the figures released by Gaza's Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, and the UN human rights office. 'The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,' the countries said. 'The Israeli government's denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable.' Palestinian health officials have said at least 101 people have died of hunger during the conflict, most of them in recent weeks. Food that does arrive in the coastal Strip is often sold and resold at extortionate prices, said Rabiha Abdel Aziz, a 75-year-old mother of nine living in a displacement camp in western Gaza. 'I don't know how people can eat,' she told The Telegraph, explaining that the family can no longer even afford a kilo of flour, which currently costs £26. She said: 'My grandchildren wake up in the morning and ask me for a piece of bread that we don't will we get the money to buy food at this price? We are dying of hunger and bombing.' 'People collapse in the streets' Salem Jehad, a father of four who is living in a camp west of Gaza city, said he was unable to find milk for his newborn son. He said: 'All my children have lost half their weight, and I am the same. Most people don't have money. 'Two years without work during the war, with the crossings closed and aid entering scarcely, people are collapsing in the streets from weakness and hunger. We drink water with salt to satisfy our hunger.' Mr Jehad said access to food had dramatically worsened since GHF took over the distribution and he wanted a return to the previous UN-run model. The UN said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid in Gaza since the GHF began operations in May. Aid distributions have been marred by chaotic scenes and frequent reports of Israeli forces firing on people waiting to collect rations. Israel's military has disputed previous death tolls, but has said its troops have at times fired warning shots, and it is investigating accusations of civilian deaths. Mr Jehad said: 'Now we are running into death traps. Gazans are dying to bring a kilo of flour and rice. Hamas's mistake over 'strategy of suffering' Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, who leads the Realign for Palestine lobby group, said that Hamas had counted on the humanitarian crisis to bring the war to an end. He told the Post: 'Hamas's strategy relied on the suffering of Gazans. 'But when this strategy failed, it foolishly doubled down on this approach, in large part because it had nothing else in its toolbox to deal with Israel's ferocious reaction to Oct 7 and the world's inability to stop it.' Lior Akerman, the head of national resilience at the Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS) at Reichman University, and a former chief of staff in Shin Bet, Israel's MI5, said Hamas had 'almost completely disintegrated in the Gaza Strip'. He said: 'All the senior commanders were killed and all the frameworks of the fighting disintegrated. 'Today, in the absence of commanders, Hamas members in the Gaza Strip are operating like independent, armed militias. 'In every area, the terrorists continue to do the best they can with the weapons they possess, and they are effectively waging a guerrilla war against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). 'This type of fighting could last for years and wear down the IDF in a never-ending war.' Truce negotiations held up Israel and Hamas are holding indirect talks in Doha aimed at reaching a 60-day truce and a hostage release deal. But there has been no sign of a deal yet, and discussions have reportedly been held up by Hamas's negotiators in Doha being unable to reach representatives in Gaza since late last week. Ronen Solomon, an Israeli intelligence analyst, said as Hamas had been degraded in Gaza, the group's centre of gravity had shifted to abroad. He said that with only Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, commander of the Gaza City Brigade, remaining as a senior figure in Gaza, 'a dramatic change has occurred'. 'The centre of gravity shifted from the Strip to Hamas abroad,' he said. 'And in particular to Khalil al-Khayya, who was very much involved in the planning of Oct 7 and continues to lead an extremist line from the Hamas base in Qatar.'
ITV News
2 hours ago
- ITV News
Starvation is 'knocking on every door' in Gaza, as deaths from malnutrition soar
Over 100 people have died within days of each other from starvation in Gaza, according to health officials, as experts warn that one in four are facing famine-like conditions. Gaza's Health Ministry said on Tuesday that 101 people, including 80 children, had died in recent days from starvation. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, did not provide precise diagnoses, but people in hunger crises often die from a combination of malnutrition, illness and deprivation. The figures come as the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres warned that starvation is 'knocking on every door' in Gaza, as he called the situation a "horror show". Gaza's population is estimated to be around 2.1 million. World Food Programme assessments indicate that a quarter of the population is facing famine-like conditions, with almost 100,000 women and children suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and requiring treatment as soon as possible. A third of Gaza's population is estimated not go without food for multiple days in a row. Speaking at the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Guterres said: "We need look no further than the horror show in Gaza. In the level of death and destruction without parallel in recent times. "Malnourishment is soaring. Starvation is knocking on every door. Now we are seeing the last gasp of a humanitarian system built on humanitarian principles. "Around the world, we see an utter disregard for, if not (an) outright violation of, international law." UN officials, aid groups and experts have warned for months that Palestinians in Gaza are on the brink of famine, although difficulties with obtaining precise data have made agencies unable to decipher if they are already experiencing one. Israel eased an 11-week blockade on aid getting into the territory in May, but aid groups say only a trickle of assistance is getting into Gaza. The distribution of aid has been complicated by a controversial Israeli-backed US-run contractor called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), and a breakdown of law and order within the territory. Over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed trying to receive aid since the blockade was lifted, according to the UN human rights office. The majority of these have been in the vicinity of GHF sites, where 766 are reported to have been killed. The other deaths were around UN convoys or other aid sites. Witnesses to killings around aid sites often attribute them to Israeli fire, although Israeli forces state they have only fired warning shots around distribution areas. In a statement, GHF rejected what it said were 'false and exaggerated statistics' from the UN, saying the deadliest incidents have been linked to UN aid convoys. On Monday, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his counterparts from 24 other nations, including France, Canada and Australia, urged Israel to lift restrictions on the flow of aid into Gaza in a joint statement, condemning the current aid model. He alleged a culture of 'just winging it' and said he was left 'traumatised' by some of what he witnessed. In a statement to ITV News, the GHF rejected the claims made by the contractor, adding: "It is an active war zone in Gaza. It's also one of the most complex operating environments in the world. The legacy models of aid delivery have failed to adequately meet the overwhelming needs of the population. "That's why GHF exists and why we are committed to constant innovation to meet President Trump's call for new, effective ways to get aid into Gaza while the UN's trucks get looted and overrun and their aid is not making it into the strip." Analysis of UN data by the charity Islamic Relief found that July has been the deadliest month in Gaza for 18 months, with one person dying every 12 minutes. The charity found that, on average, 119 Palestinians have been killed daily in July, the highest rate since January 2024, and more than 401 Palestinians a day have been wounded. Waseem Ahmad, Chief Executive of Islamic Relief Worldwide, says world leaders must urgently take action.'The rate of killing is accelerating every day that world leaders fail to act," he said. "We are witnessing people massacred just for trying to get food, water or medicine. We're seeing babies and young children starve to death because Israel is blocking humanitarian aid. "We're seeing starving families ordered to leave their homes, then bombed in the tents where they are told to shelter." Islamic Relief estimates that, in total, around 9% of Gaza's entire pre-war population have now been killed or wounded, with over 59,000 people dead and over 140,000 wounded - many with life-changing injuries such as loss of limbs.
BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
Gaza health ministry says 33 people died from malnutrition in 48 hours
At least 33 Palestinians, including 12 children, have died as a result of malnutrition across the Gaza Strip in the past 48 hours, the Hamas-run health ministry has deaths of 11 adults and four children were reported over the past day, a spokesman told the came as UN Secretary General António Guterres told the UN Security Council that "malnutrition is soaring" and "starvation is knocking on every door" in 2.1 million population is facing grave shortages of basic supplies, he said, and Israel has an obligation to facilitate humanitarian assistance by the UN and its partners. Israel, which controls Gaza's crossings, has insisted that it acts in accordance with international law and facilitates the entry of aid while ensuring it does not reach journalists, including the BBC, are blocked by Israel from entering Gaza independently, so it is difficult to verify the number of reported malnutrition footage filmed by a local Palestinian journalist working for the BBC at al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah showed the emaciated body of a man called Ahmed al-Hasanat, who doctors said had died from malnutrition on Tuesday. Health officials said a 13-year-old boy, Abdul Hamid al-Ghalban, also died in the southern city of Khan Younis. Photos from AFP and Anadolu news agencies showed the teenager's small body being prepared for burial at Nasser hospital and then carried in a white media meanwhile posted a video showing the body of a six-week-old boy, Yousef al-Safadi, who health officials said died at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City due to US-based medical humanitarian group MedGlobal also said in a statement that its nutritional teams in Gaza had witnessed five severely malnourished children, aged between three months and four years old, die within the past three days."This is a deliberate and human-made disaster," MedGlobal's executive director, Joseph Belliveau, said. "Those children died because there is not enough food in Gaza and not enough medicines, including IV fluids and therapeutic formula, to revive them."MedGlobal said that since the beginning of July, cases of acutely malnourished, mainly children, had nearly tripled at its facilities, indicating a widespread food UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) also said that it was receiving "SOS" messages from its staff in Gaza, saying they were desperately short of food. Some Unrwa doctors and aid workers had reportedly been fainting while working, due to hunger and exhaustion, it this week, the World Food Programme (WFP) reported that malnutrition was surging, with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment, and that nearly one person in three was not eating for noted that food aid was the only way for most people to access any food because prices in local markets had skyrocketed. It said a 1kg (2.2lb) bag of flour now cost over $100 (£74).The WFP called for a "massive scale-up in food aid distribution" and said it had food supplies nearby and teams on the ground ready to UN says a minimum of 600 aid lorries a day need to enter Gaza. However, the UN Organisation for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it was only permitted to bring in 1,600 lorries of aid between May and July - an average of around 27 per Israeli foreign ministry said on Sunday that it had allowed 4,400 lorry loads of aid to enter Gaza over the past two months, and that 700 loads were waiting to be picked up by UN agencies from crossing UN has said that it struggles to pick up and distribute supplies because of the ongoing hostilities, Israeli restrictions on humanitarian movements, and fuel shortages. Israel imposed a total blockade of aid deliveries to Gaza at the start of March and resumed its military offensive against Hamas two weeks later, collapsing a two-month ceasefire. It said it wanted to put pressure on the armed group to release its remaining Israeli the blockade was partially eased in late May, amid warnings of a looming famine from global experts, the shortages of food, medicine and fuel have grown have also been almost daily reports of Palestinians being killed while seeking aid since Israel and the US helped to establish a new aid system to bypass the existing one overseen by the new system, run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), started at the end of May, and uses US private security contractors to hand out food parcels from sites inside Israeli military says the system prevents supplies from being stolen by the UN and its partners have refused to co-operate with the GHF, saying it is unsafe and violates the humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality, and Tuesday, the UN human rights office said that it had recorded the killing of 766 people by the Israeli military in the vicinity of the GHF's aid sites since they began operating eight weeks ago. Another 288 killings had been recorded along routes of UN and other aid convoys."We are seeing the last gasp of a humanitarian system built on humanitarian principles," António Guterres told the UN Security Council. "This system is being denied the conditions to function, denied the space to deliver, denied the safety to save lives."He also said that the Israeli military's intensifying operations and evacuation orders in Deir al-Balah meant "devastation is being layered upon devastation".On Monday night, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the Israeli ground operation in Deir al-Balah had compromised its efforts to continue working, after its staff residence and main warehouse came under Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. At least 59,106 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health ministry.
