At least 73 people seeking aid in Gaza killed by Israeli gunfire on Sunday, health ministry says

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2 days ago

At least 73 people were killed and around 150 people injured by Israeli gunfire in Gaza while seeking aid on Sunday, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
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. It marks one of the highest reported death tolls among recent, repeated cases in which aid seekers have been killed.
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 United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) said a 25-truck convoy carrying vital food assistance crossed the Zikim border on Sunday morning aiming to reach communities in northern Gaza.
'Shortly after passing the final checkpoint beyond the Zikim crossing point into Gaza, the convoy encountered large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies,' the WFP wrote on X. 'As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire.'
Shooting near humanitarian missions, convoys and food distributions 'must stop immediately,' the WFP added, and said the latest incident 'underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which humanitarian operations are forced to be conducted in Gaza.'
The Israeli military on Sunday 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.
Meanwhile, residents in the central Gaza city of Deir Al Balah said they were forced to evacuate on Sunday after the IDF dropped flyers warning them to leave the area.
'The planes came and dropped many leaflets on us; the entire sky was covered with leaflets on the houses, the streets and everywhere, stating that we had to evacuate from certain areas,' one resident, Thurayya Abu Qunneis, told CNN.
'We are living on edge. We can't sleep, eat or drink. There is no flour, no anything, and we are hungry,' she said. 'We are dying, and our children are dying of hunger.'
Another resident, Mohammad Al Najiri, told CNN: 'We were sitting here in the morning when suddenly they sent us messages and warnings telling us to leave. Where should we go? There is no place to evacuate to… we don't know where to go.'
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said in a statement Sunday that Israel's evacuation orders 'endanger vital humanitarian and primary healthcare sites… and are accelerating the systematic dismantling of Gaza's already-decimated healthcare system,' adding that several humanitarian organizations' offices were 'ordered to evacuate immediately,' and nine clinics, five shelters and a community kitchen were forced to shut down amid the orders.
In another incident 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.
CNN's Eugenia Yosef and Abeer Salman contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional information.