At least 73 people seeking aid in Gaza killed by Israeli gunfire on Sunday, health ministry says
Some 67 people were killed in northern Gaza, the ministry said, while six others were killed in Khan Younis in the south of the Strip. It is unclear whether the 67 people reported killed in northern Gaza were all killed in the same place or in multiple incidents.
The Israel Defense Forces said that troops had 'fired warning shots in order to remove an immediate threat posed to them' after 'a gathering of thousands of Gazans was identified in the northern Gaza Strip.'
'The IDF is aware of the claim regarding casualties in the area, and the details of the incident are still being examined,' the Israeli military said, without disclosing any casualty figures.
The Israeli military also issued a warning to residents in a number of areas in northern Gaza, including the cities of Beit Lahia, Jabalya and Beit Hanoun.
'These areas are active combat zones and extremely dangerous,' the IDF's Arabic language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said Sunday. 'The Israel Defense Forces are operating in these areas with very intense force. For your safety, movement to these areas is strictly prohibited. Those who heard have been warned.'
According to Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, people were shot at by the Israeli army on Sunday morning while attempting to get aid northwest of Gaza City, which is in the north of the enclave.
'Al-Shifa Medical Complex is in a catastrophic state due to the overwhelming number of martyrs, injuries and starving civilians,' Abu Salmiya told CNN in a statement.
'There have been a large number of deaths and injuries among those seeking aid, and ambulances and civilian vehicles have not stopped arriving, transporting the wounded and the dead from the northwestern areas of Gaza,' he continued.
'A significant number of civilians, and even medical staff, are arriving in a state of fainting or collapse due to severe malnutrition,' he said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that its Al-Saraya Field Hospital in Gaza City received 120 injured people, some of them in critical condition, on Sunday. It said it also received two dead bodies.
'Israeli forces targeted civilians waiting for aid arriving from the Zikim area, north of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. Due to the large number of casualties received by the hospital, new beds were urgently opened to ensure adequate treatment for the injured, as the hospital's capacity is estimated at only 68 beds,' the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
On Saturday, at least 32 people were killed while seeking aid near a distribution point run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to the Palestinian health ministry and witnesses.
The Israeli military said troops had 'identified suspects who approached them during operational activity in the Rafah area' about one kilometer from the aid site 'at night-time when it's not active.'
The IDF said troops had called on the suspects 'to distance themselves, and after they did not comply, the troops fired warning shots.' It said it was aware of reports regarding casualties and the incident was under review.
According to Gaza's Hamas-run Government Media Office, some 995 people have been killed while attempting to obtain food near aid distribution sites between May 27 and Sunday.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said earlier this month that nearly 800 Gazans had been killed trying to access aid between late May and July 7.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
‘The situation has gone from bad to worse": pediatric oncologist characterizes starvation in Gaza
Dr. Zeena Salman, a pediatric oncologist and founder of the organization HEAL Palestine, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer what's happening in Gaza is "the decimation of a healthcare system."
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
France to begin air-dropping 40 tonnes of food aid into Gaza
France will begin air-dropping 40 tonnes of food supplies into the Gaza Strip from Jordan on Friday. The territory has been under a full blockade imposed by Israel for several months. 'There will be several flights – four in total – each carrying 10 tonnes of humanitarian cargo,' French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told FranceInfo. 'This is emergency aid, but of course it is not sufficient,' he said, describing the situation as 'revolting'. Barrot added that 'in the first half of July alone, no fewer than 5,000 children under the age of five were admitted for treatment due to acute malnutrition'. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global hunger monitoring body, said this week that a famine scenario was unfolding in the Gaza Strip, and that urgent action was needed to prevent mass deaths. More than 110 aid and human rights groups denounce Gaza 'mass starvation' Barrot on Thursday said the US and Israel-backed aid distribution system had caused a 'bloodbath' and must stop. 'I want to call for the cessation of the activities of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the militarised distribution of humanitarian aid that has generated a bloodbath in distribution lines in Gaza, which is a scandal, which is shameful, and has to stop,' Barrot told reporters after meeting his Cypriot counterpart in Nicosia. Health authorities in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, have reported a growing number of deaths linked to hunger. The Israeli government denies it is pursuing a policy of starvation – an act that could constitute a war crime and a crime against humanity under international law. (with newswires) Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
13 hours ago
- New York Times
Gaza's Children May Never Recover From This
The enduring anguish of the kind of starvation that has taken hold in Gaza lives on in personal and collective memory for generations. Starvation also lives on in the body, especially for the young. For children who survive acute malnutrition, the resulting physical and cognitive damage can last a lifetime. Those of us who have studied famines over many decades recognize the dreadful signs when social collapse is imminent — when the bonds that tie a community together are fraying and order is breaking down. It is a moment at which death rates grow exponentially and beyond which the fabric of society becomes far more difficult to repair. This disintegration portends chaos and conflict, delinquency and a fierce hopelessness that can breed fresh terrorism. Gaza appears to be passing into that zone now. It is a calamity that was foreseeable, and foreseen. Starvation takes time; authorities cannot starve a population by accident. Since March of 2024, international bodies have repeatedly warned that Gaza is on the brink of famine. This week, a U.N.-backed group issued yet another alert warning that 'the worst-case scenario of famine is playing out.' Food-security experts haven't had access to the data they would need to make a final judgment about whether conditions in Gaza officially constitute a famine. At this point, the distinction is irrelevant. Seasoned humanitarian-aid professionals can still bring Gaza back from the brink — if they're given the chance. For months, Israel has restricted the flow of aid into Gaza, fueling a crisis of hunger that is growing more dire by the day. Food stockpiles were already desperately low in March, when Israel imposed a blockade on the enclave, citing unverified claims that Hamas had been systematically stealing food from the U.N. When Israel partly eased restrictions in May, it began operating a new Israeli- and U.S.-backed aid distribution system run by a private group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, largely displacing traditional aid agencies. This system has so thoroughly ignored conditions on the ground that it raises the question of whether Israel has been intentionally engineering starvation in the strip. The aid provided by the G.H.F. is inadequate by several standards. The group's ration boxes, according to nutritionists, are unbalanced and lack nutrients that are essential for starving populations, especially children. A malnourished child requires specialized food such as Plumpy'Nut, a peanut-based therapeutic formula — not pasta or lentils, which the G.H.F. offers instead. The most severely malnourished need intensive care in a hospital. To prepare food included in the ration boxes, people also often require fuel and clean water, both of which are in short supply in Gaza. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
