International charities and NGOs call for end to controversial Israeli-backed aid group in Gaza
At least seven Palestinians were killed seeking aid in southern and central Gaza between late Monday and early Tuesday.
The deaths came after Israeli forces killed at least 74 people in Gaza earlier Monday with airstrikes that left 30 dead at a seaside cafe and gunfire that left 23 dead as Palestinians tried to get desperately needed food aid, witnesses and health officials said.
Next week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington to meet President Trump and other administration officials. Netanyahu's visit comes as Trump has signaled he is ready for Israel and Hamas to wind down the war in Gaza, which is likely to be a focus of their talks.
The war has killed over 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead were women and children.
The health ministry on Tuesday afternoon said the bodies of 116 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours.
The Hamas attack in October 2023 that sparked the war killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Some 50 hostages remain, many of them thought to be dead.
More than 165 major international charities and non-governmental organizations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty, on Tuesday called for an immediate end to the Gaza Humanitarian Fund.
'Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,' the group said in a joint news release.
The call by the charities and NGOs was the latest sign of trouble for the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, a secretive U.S. and Israeli-backed initiative headed by an evangelical leader who is a close ally of Trump.
The Gaza Humanitarian Fund started distributing aid on May 26, following a nearly three-month Israeli blockade that has pushed Gaza's population of more than 2 million people to the brink of famine.
In a statement Tuesday, the organization said it has delivered more than 52 million meals over five weeks.
'Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza,' the statement said. 'We are ready to collaborate and help them get their aid to people in need. At the end of the day, the Palestinian people need to be fed.'
Last month, the organization said there has been no violence in or around its distribution centers and that its personnel have not opened fire.
Israel's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
According to Gaza's Health Ministry, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed around the chaotic and controversial aid distribution program over the past month.
Palestinians are often forced to travel long distances to access Gaza Humanitarian Fund hubs in hopes of obtaining aid.
The humanitarian fund is the linchpin of a new aid system that wrested distribution away from aid groups led by the U.N.
The new mechanism limits food distribution to a small number of hubs under guard of armed contractors, where people must go to pick it up. Currently four hubs are set up, all close to Israeli military positions.
Israel had demanded an alternative plan because it accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid. The United Nations and aid groups deny there is significant diversion. They reject the new mechanism, saying it allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles and won't be effective.
The Israeli military said it had recently taken steps to improve organization in the area.
Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of hiding among civilians because they operate in populated areas.
At least seven Palestinians were killed late Monday and early Tuesday in three separate locations while seeking aid, hospitals said.
Three of the deaths by Israeli fire occurred in Gaza's southern city of Khan Yunis, while four were killed in central Gaza.
More than 65 others were wounded, according to the Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, and the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, which received the casualties.
The casualties were among thousands of starved Palestinians who gather at night to take aid from passing trucks in the area of the Netzarim route in central Gaza.
Meanwhile, an 11-year-old girl was killed Tuesday when an Israeli strike hit her family's tent west of Khan Yunis, according to the Kuwait field hospital that received her body.
And the U.N. Palestinian aid agency said Israel's military struck one of its schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza City on Monday. The strike left no casualties but caused significant damage to the facility, UNRWA said.
Speaking to a meeting of his Cabinet on Tuesday, Netanyahu did not elaborate on the contents of his upcoming Washington visit, except to say he will discuss a trade deal.
Iran, following the 12-day war with Israel, is also expected to be a main topic of discussion. After brokering a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, Trump has signaled that he's turning his attention to bringing a close to the fighting between Israel and Hamas.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in the occupied West Bank said Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in the territory, including a 15-year-old, in two separate incidents.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the teen's shooting. In the second incident, it said a 'suspicious individual' was seen trying to cross into Israel from the southern West Bank, prompting soldiers to open fire.
The Shifa hospital in Gaza City suspended services at the dialysis unit amid a shortage of fuel required to operate power generators, the Health Ministry announced on Tuesday. The unit provides treatment to dozens of kidney failure patients in northern Gaza.
It called for international agencies to press Israel to quickly allow the delivery of fuel to Shifa and other overwhelmed hospitals across Gaza.
'The continued lack of fuel means the inevitable death of all patients and wounded in hospitals,' it said.
Mourners held Muslim funeral prayers Tuesday for seven people from the same family who were killed in an airstrike the previous day in central Gaza.
The strike hit a family house in the central town of Zawaida late Monday, killing two parents, two siblings and three grandchildren, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah, which received the casualties.
Magdy writes for the Associated Press. Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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