
93 Palestinians killed by Israeli army in Gaza while trying to collect aid, civil defense says
Eighty were killed as truckloads of aid arrived in the north, while nine others were reported shot near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, where dozens of people lost their lives just 24 hours earlier. Four were killed near another aid site in Khan Yunis, also in the south, agency spokesman Mahmud Basal told AFP.
The UN World Food Programme said its 25-truck convoy carrying food aid "encountered massive crowds of hungry civilians which came under gunfire" near Gaza City, soon after it crossed from Israel and cleared checkpoints. Israel's military disputed the death toll and said soldiers had fired warning shots "to remove an immediate threat posed to them" as thousands gathered near Gaza City.
Deaths of civilians seeking aid have become a regular occurrence in Gaza, with the authorities blaming Israeli fire as crowds facing chronic shortages of food and other essentials flock in huge numbers to aid centers. The UN said earlier this month that nearly 800 aid-seekers had been killed since late May, including on the routes of aid convoys.
'Sniper' fire
In Gaza City, Qasem Abu Khater, 36, told AFP he had rushed to try to get a bag of flour but instead found a desperate crowd of thousands and "deadly overcrowding and pushing."
"The tanks were firing shells randomly at us and Israeli sniper soldiers were shooting as if they were hunting animals in a forest," he added. "Dozens of people were martyred right before my eyes and no one could save anyone."
The WFP condemned violence against civilians seeking aid as "completely unacceptable." Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the agency and other parties. The army says it works to avoid harm to civilians, and that this month it issued new instructions to its troops on the ground "following lessons learned" from a spate of similar incidents.
Israel on Sunday withdrew the residency permit of head of the OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) office in Israel, Jonathan Whittall, who has repeatedly condemned the humanitarian conditions in Gaza. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in a post to X, accused him of spreading lies about the war in Gaza.
The war was sparked by Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, leading to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed 58,895 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
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France 24
3 minutes ago
- France 24
Ill-equipped and tired: a night with a Ukrainian air defence unit
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LeMonde
33 minutes ago
- LeMonde
At least five reportedly dead after New York City shooting in Midtown
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AFP
3 hours ago
- AFP
Posts falsely link old images to July 2025 Bangladesh protest
"Dressed in police uniforms, they are shooting ordinary people indiscriminately after shutting down the internet in Gopalganj," reads a Bengali-language shared on July 16, 2025. The attached photo shows armed policemen standing in a street. The post was shared after clashes erupted in Hasina's hometown of Gopalganj on July 16 when members of her Awami League party tried to foil a rally by the National Citizens Party (NCP), made up of many students who spearheaded the uprising that toppled her government last year (archived link). Human rights activists said security forces had fired indiscriminately during the unrest, killing at least five people. A separate Facebook post on July 17 featured a photo collage of men holding firearms, with a caption that suggested it showed members of the Awami League in Gopalganj. Image Screenshot of the false posts, taken July 24, 2025, with a red X added by AFP A separate video of police loading a man onto a police van surfaced on YouTube with the caption "Gopalganj" on July 17. Hasina's son, Sajeeb Wazed, had also shared the clip alongside claims it showed police handling a protester that was killed in a "shooting", though his post has since been taken down (archived link). Image Screenshot of the false post, taken July 22, 2025, with a red X added by AFP Other posts on Instagram and YouTube also linked the visuals to the unrest in Gopalganj. But reverse image searches showed the photos and video are old and unrelated to the clashes. The photo of the armed police was published by local online outlet News Bangla in September 2022 in a report about a policeman who shot an activist during a rally by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to celebrate the organisation's founding (archived link). the caption of the photo says. The report says Kanak was removed from the intelligence force and Image Screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the photo from News Bangla (right) The photo of a man holding a firearm shared in the collage was published by Jago News in a report about pro-government groups using weapons against student protesters pushing for a reform of the quota system for public sector jobs in the southeastern port city of Chittagong on July 16, 2024 (archived link). Those demonstrations eventually led to the wider anti-government uprising that year (archived link). Image Screenshot comparison between the photo used in the circulating collage (left) and the photo from Jago News (right) The men seen in the other three images used in the collage match those seen in a photo published by The Daily Star on July 17, 2024 about the same protest (archived link). Image Screenshot comparison of the circulating collage (left) and The Daily Star photo (right), with similar elements highlighted in blue and orange rectangles by AFP. AFP found a higher resolution version of the video of a man being loaded onto a van "A robber was caught at Bhadughar Bus Stand cattle market and beaten up before handed over to the police," its caption says. Image Screenshot comparison of false post (left) and Facebook post from June 4, 2025 (right) The Bhadughar Bus Stand is located in the eastern town of Brahmanbaria Upazila, about 170 kilometres (105 miles) from Gopalganj. Mozaffar Hossain, an officer in-charge at the local Brahmanbaria Sadar Model Police Station told AFP on July 24 the video was filmed at the Bhadughar Bus Stand cattle market on June 4. "The public caught the man red-handed when he attempted to steal a cow. He was handed over to us after being beaten by the people. Later we produced him before court," he said.