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Israel kills 18 more starving aid-seekers in Gaza despite declaring 'humanitarian pause' - War on Gaza

Israel kills 18 more starving aid-seekers in Gaza despite declaring 'humanitarian pause' - War on Gaza

Al-Ahram Weekly6 days ago
Israel killed at least 18 starving Palestinians, including two children, on Sunday morning as they waited for food aid in Gaza—just hours after announcing a 'tactical pause' in its war on the Strip, medical sources told Palestinian news agency WAFA.
The victims were struck by Israeli fire near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution centres in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, as well as in central Gaza.
Earlier in the day, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that Israeli occupation forces had killed 11 people and injured over 36 others in the past 24 hours in attacks targeting Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid. This brings the total number of Palestinians killed while seeking food to 1,132, with more than 7,521 others wounded.
Gaza's hospitals also recorded six additional deaths from famine and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, raising the total number of such deaths to 133, including 87 children.
Meanwhile, Israel continued its intense bombardment across the Strip, targeting residential homes and tents sheltering displaced people.
In total, hospitals received 88 fatalities on Sunday—including 12 bodies recovered from under rubble—and 374 wounded.
The ongoing massacres of aid-seekers come despite Israel's declaration of a "tactical pause" in military operations in parts of the Gaza Strip, ostensibly to allow the passage of United Nations (UN) aid convoys.
The move follows mounting international outrage over mass starvation in the besieged enclave and the nearly 22-month-long war.
According to the Israeli army, the pause applies only to areas where its forces are 'not currently active,' including Al-Mawasi, Deir al-Balah, and Gaza City. The pause is scheduled to run daily from 10:00am to 8:00pm.
Israel added that 'designated secure routes' would remain open across the Strip to enable UN and NGO convoys to deliver food and medicine. However, it emphasized that military operations would continue elsewhere.
In its latest update, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Sunday that the death toll from Israel's war on Gaza has reached 59,821, with 144,851 wounded since 7 October 2023.
Of that total, 8,657 have been killed and 32,810 injured since 18 March, when Israel unilaterally broke a two-month ceasefire with Hamas—brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the US—resuming its genocidal war on Gaza.
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Israeli fire kills at least 18 in Gaza, including starving aid-seekers - War on Gaza
Israeli fire kills at least 18 in Gaza, including starving aid-seekers - War on Gaza

Al-Ahram Weekly

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Israeli fire kills at least 18 in Gaza, including starving aid-seekers - War on Gaza

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Eight aid-seekers among 22 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza Friday - War on Gaza
Eight aid-seekers among 22 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza Friday - War on Gaza

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Eight aid-seekers among 22 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza Friday - War on Gaza

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UPDATED: Eight aid-seekers among 22 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza Friday - War on Gaza
UPDATED: Eight aid-seekers among 22 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza Friday - War on Gaza

Al-Ahram Weekly

timea day ago

  • Al-Ahram Weekly

UPDATED: Eight aid-seekers among 22 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza Friday - War on Gaza

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli gunfire and air strikes killed at least 22 people on Friday, including eight who were waiting to collect food aid in the war-battered Palestinian territory. Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that five people were killed in a strike in the southern Gaza Strip, and four more when a vehicle was hit in the central area of Deir el-Balah. Bassal said Israeli forces killed five Palestinians who were trying to return to the Gaza City area, in the territory's north, after word had spread that troops had withdrawn from there. There was no comment from the Israeli military, which told AFP it could not confirm any of the incidents without specific coordinates for each of them. The civil defence agency reported deadly fire at Palestinians who were seeking humanitarian aid, in a territory where UN-backed experts have reported that "famine is now unfolding". Bassal said six people were killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting near northern Gaza's Zikim crossing, through which aid trucks have entered from Israel in recent weeks. Israeli fire on a crowd near an aid distribution site in southern Gaza killed two people and wounded 70 others, the civil defence said. Thousands of Gazans have gathered each day near aid distribution points in Gaza, including the four managed by GHF, whose operations have been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily Israeli forces firing on people waiting to collect rations. According to the UN, at least 1,373 Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers as they tried to access food between 27 May and 31 July 2025, including 859 who were in the vicinity of GHF sites. Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods and aid into Gaza since the start of the war nearly 22 months ago have led to shortages of food and essential goods, including medicine, medical supplies and fuel, which hospitals rely on to power their generators. The shortages were exacerbated by a more than two-month total blockade on aid imposed by Israel, which began easing the stoppage in late May as GHF was beginning its operations. The UN says Gaza requires at least 500 trucks of aid per day. Human Rights Watch on Friday warned that Israeli forces at the distribution sites of the US- and Israeli-backed GHF have routinely opened fire on starving Palestinian civilians in acts that amount to war crimes. 'The dire humanitarian situation is a direct result of Israel's use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war – a war crime – as well as Israel's continued intentional deprivation of aid and basic services, ongoing actions that amount to the crime against humanity of extermination, and acts of genocide,' read the report released Friday. "The repeated use of lethal force against Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces, without justification, violates both international humanitarian and human rights law.... Regular killings by Israeli forces near GHF sites also amount to war crimes," it added. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:

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