Israeli military kills 41 people in Gaza, medics say
Mourners pray during the funeral of a Palestinian killed in what the Gaza health ministry says was Israeli fire near a distribution center in Rafah, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
Palestinians walk past a burning car hit in an Israeli strike, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
CAIRO - Israeli gunfire and airstrikes killed at least 41 Palestinians across Gaza on Sunday, local health authorities said, five of them near two aid sites operated by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Medics at Al-Awda Hospital in the central Gaza Strip said at least three people were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire as they tried to approach a GHF site near the Netzarim corridor. Two others were killed en route to another aid site in Rafah in the south.
An airstrike killed seven other people in Beit Lahiya town north of the enclave, medics said. In Nuseirat camp in central Gaza Strip, medics said an Israeli airstrike killed at least 11 people in a house. The rest were killed in separate airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip, they added.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May after Israel partially lifted a near three-month total blockade. Scores of Palestinians have been killed in near-daily mass shootings trying to reach the food.
The GHF said in a statement that it resumed food deliveries on Sunday, distributing more than two million meals from its three distribution sites without incident.
The United Nations rejects the new Israeli-backed distribution system as inadequate, dangerous, and a violation of humanitarian impartiality principles.
COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, said that this week it had facilitated the entry of 292 trucks with humanitarian aid from the United Nations and the international community, including food and flour, into Gaza.
It said the Israeli military would continue to permit the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave while ensuring it did not reach Hamas. Hamas denies Israeli accusations that it steals aid and says Israel is using hunger as a weapon against the Gaza population.
The Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday that at least 300 people have so far been killed, and more than 2,600 wounded, near aid distribution sites since the GHF began operations in Gaza.
"These are not humanitarian aid, these are traps for the poor and the hungry under the watch of occupation planes," said Munir Al-Bursh, Director-General of the health ministry.
"Aid distributed under fire isn't aid, it is humiliation," Bursh posted on X on Sunday.
The war in Gaza erupted 20 months ago after Hamas-led militants raided Israel and took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on October 7, 2023, Israel's single deadliest day.
Israel's military campaign since has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the densely populated strip, which is home to more than two million people. Most of the population is displaced, and malnutrition is widespread. REUTERS
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
4 days ago
- Straits Times
Over 170 charities call for end to deadly new Gaza aid distribution system
FILE PHOTO: Palestinians gather to collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo GENEVA - More than 170 non-governmental organisations called on Tuesday for a U.S.- and Israeli-backed food aid distribution scheme in Gaza to be dismantled over concerns it is putting civilians at risk of death and injury. More than 500 people have been killed in mass shootings near aid distribution centres or transport routes guarded by Israeli forces since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operating in late May, according to medical authorities in Gaza. The GHF uses private U.S. security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a U.N.-led system that Israel says had let militants divert aid. The United Nations has called the plan "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules. As of early afternoon in Geneva on Tuesday, where the joint declaration was released, 171 charities had signed onto the call for countries to press Israel to halt the GHF scheme and reinstate aid coordinated through the United Nations. "Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families," the statement said. Groups signing it included Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Amnesty a response, the GHF told Reuters it had delivered more than 52 million meals in five weeks and said other humanitarian groups had "nearly all of their aid looted". "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 GHF told Reuters. The NGOs accused the GHF of forcing hungry and weak people to trek for hours, sometimes through active conflict zones, to receive food aid. The Israeli military acknowledged on Monday that Palestinian civilians have been harmed at aid distribution centres in the Gaza Strip, saying that Israeli forces had been issued new instructions following what it called "lessons learned". Israel has repeatedly said its forces operate near the centres in order to prevent the aid from falling into the hands of Palestinian Hamas militants. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
4 days ago
- Straits Times
Food supplies to some Sudan refugees could dry up within 2 months, WFP says
FILE PHOTO: Displaced people ride a an animal-drawn cart, following Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacks on Zamzam displacement camp, in the town of Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo Food supplies to some Sudan refugees could dry up within 2 months, WFP says GENEVA - Food aid to help Sudanese refugees in four neighbouring countries could end within the next couple of months without an urgent injection of new funding, a World Food Programme official said on Tuesday, warning of rising malnutrition levels. Over 4 million refugees have fled Sudan's more than two-year civil war to seven neighbouring countries where shelter conditions are widely viewed as inadequate due to chronic funding shortages. "Unless new funding is secured, all refugees will face assistance cuts in the coming months," Shaun Hughes, the WFP's emergency coordinator for the Sudan regional crisis, told a Geneva press briefing, calling for $200 million over six months. "In the case of four countries - that's the Central African Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya - WFP's operations are now so severely underfunded, that all support could cease in the coming months as resources run dry," he said, clarifying later that this could happen within two months. Many of those fleeing are escaping from hunger hot spots in Sudan. A joint U.N. report said last month the country was at immediate risk of famine. Hughes said that any reduction or end to rations would leave child refugees at a greater risk of malnutrition. Asked why the funding had fallen, he cited reductions from donors across the board and rising humanitarian needs. He added that the United States, which has reduced its foreign aid spending dramatically under President Donald Trump, remained its top donor for Sudan. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
6 days ago
- Straits Times
Air India plane crash probe looking at all angles: Minister
The minister said that until the investigation report is published, it would be premature to comment on the cause. PHOTO: REUTERS NEW DELHI - An Indian aviation minister on June 29 said investigators were probing 'all angles' behind an Air India crash when asked by media about possible sabotage. All but one of the 242 people on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner were killed when it crashed in the western city of Ahmedabad on June 12. The authorities have identified 19 others who died on the ground, but a police source told AFP after the crash that the toll was 38. India's Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Mr Murlidhar Mohol, said the investigation was looking at 'all angles' when asked specifically about possible 'sabotage', in an interview with Indian news channel NDTV. 'It has never happened before that both engines have shut off together,' Mr Mohol said earlier in the interview, in reference to theories by some experts of possible dual-engine failure. The minister added that until the investigation report is published, it would be premature to comment on the cause. The team appointed to investigate the crash started extracting data from the plane's cockpit voice and flight data recorders this week, in an attempt to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the disaster. Air India has said that the plane was 'well-maintained' and that the pilots were accomplished flyers. AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
