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Gaza aid system ‘leads to mass killings'
Gaza aid system ‘leads to mass killings'

Arab News

time4 days ago

  • Health
  • Arab News

Gaza aid system ‘leads to mass killings'

GAZA CITY: UN officials said a US- and Israeli-backed distribution system in Gaza was leading to mass killings of people seeking humanitarian aid, drawing accusations from Israel that the UN was 'aligning itself with Hamas.' Eyewitnesses and local officials have reported repeated killings of Palestinians seeking aid at distribution centers over recent weeks in the war-stricken territory, where Israeli forces are battling militants. The Israeli military has denied targeting people seeking aid, and the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has denied that any deadly incidents were linked to its sites. The new aid distribution system has become a killing field with people shot at while trying to access food for themselves and their families. Philippe Lazzarini, Head of the UN agency for Palestinian affairs But following weeks of reports, UN officials and other aid providers denounced what they said was a wave of killings of hungry people seeking aid. 'The new aid distribution system has become a killing field,' with people 'shot at while trying to access food for themselves and their families,' said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian affairs , or UNWRA. 'This abomination must end through a return to humanitarian deliveries from the UN, including @UNRWA,' he wrote on X. The Health Ministry in the territory says that since late May, more than 500 people have been killed near aid centers while seeking scarce supplies. Hungry Palestinians are enduring a catastrophic situation in Gaza. Thousands of Palestinians walk for hours to reach the sites, moving through Israeli military zones. The country's civil defense agency has also repeatedly reported people being killed while seeking aid. 'People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families,' said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. 'The search for food must never be a death sentence.' Medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, branded the GHF relief effort 'slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid.' That drew an angry response from Israel, which said GHF had provided 46 million meals in Gaza. 'The UN is doing everything it can to oppose this effort. In doing so, the UN is aligning itself with Hamas, which is also trying to sabotage the GHF's humanitarian operations,' the Foreign Ministry said. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a newspaper report that the country's military commanders ordered soldiers to fire at Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid in Gaza. Left-leaning daily Haaretz had earlier quoted unnamed soldiers as saying commanders ordered troops to shoot at crowds near aid distribution centers to disperse them even when they posed no threat. Haaretz said the military advocate general, the army's top legal authority, had instructed the military to investigate 'suspected war crimes' at aid sites. The Israeli military declined to comment on the claim. Netanyahu said in a joint statement with Defense Minister Israel Katz that their country 'absolutely rejects the contemptible blood libels' and 'malicious falsehoods' in the Haaretz article. The military said in a separate statement it 'did not instruct the forces to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centers.' It added that Israeli military 'directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians.' Israel blocked deliveries of food and other crucial supplies into Gaza from March for more than two months. It began allowing supplies to trickle in at the end of May, with GHF centers secured by armed US contractors and Israeli troops on the perimeter. Guterres said that from the UN, just a 'handful' of medical deliveries had crossed into Gaza this week.

More Gaza aid hub killings as UNWRA head calls GHF process ‘an abomination'
More Gaza aid hub killings as UNWRA head calls GHF process ‘an abomination'

Al Jazeera

time25-06-2025

  • Politics
  • Al Jazeera

More Gaza aid hub killings as UNWRA head calls GHF process ‘an abomination'

More Gaza aid hub killings as UNWRA chief calls GHF process 'an abomination' NewsFeed At least 60 Palestinians were killed while trying to get aid in Gaza in the past 24 hours. More than 500 have been killed since the US- and Israel-backed GHF took over distribution, a process condemned as a 'death trap' by UN officials. Video Duration 02 minutes 56 seconds 02:56 Video Duration 02 minutes 22 seconds 02:22 Video Duration 02 minutes 02 seconds 02:02 Video Duration 00 minutes 44 seconds 00:44 Video Duration 00 minutes 18 seconds 00:18 Video Duration 00 minutes 46 seconds 00:46 Video Duration 01 minutes 26 seconds 01:26

Israeli military kills dozens in latest attacks on Gaza aid seekers
Israeli military kills dozens in latest attacks on Gaza aid seekers

Al Jazeera

time24-06-2025

  • Health
  • Al Jazeera

Israeli military kills dozens in latest attacks on Gaza aid seekers

Israeli forces and drones have reportedly killed dozens in the latest attacks on people seeking aid in Gaza. The violence, carried out as Palestinians waited for aid at distribution sites across the enclave on Tuesday, may have killed as many as 50 people in total, according to Palestinian health workers and witnesses, although figures remain unverified. The killings are the latest in a wave of daily carnage near aid distribution points established late last month by the controversial Israeli and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNWRA) has labelled a 'death trap'. Sources in Gaza hospitals told Al Jazeera that up to 50 people had been killed by Israeli fire near aid distribution centres since dawn, along with 21 others across the territory. Medical sources reported that at least 25 people were killed in an incident on Salah al-Din Street south of Wadi Gaza in central Gaza, according to The Associated Press news agency. More than 140 other people were injured, 62 of them critically. Footage posted on social media site Instagram, and verified by Al Jazeera's Sanad agency, showed bodies being brought to al-Awda Hospital in the nearby Nuseirat refugee camp. Similar scenes were reported from the Nasser Medical Complex to the south in Khan Younis, following unverified reports that the Israeli army had targeted people waiting for aid on al-Tina Street. People approaching an aid point in Gaza City were also killed, Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud reported from the city in the north of the territory, as well as Rafah in the south. 'Casualties were brought to various health facilities, including al-Shifa Hospital [in Gaza City],' he said. 'The emergency ward there turned into a bloodbath, and many died waiting for medical care.' A post shared by Anwer Y. Abo Sliyhe (@anwersliyhe) Witnesses told AP that Israeli forces had opened fire as people were approaching the aid trucks. 'It was a massacre,' said Ahmed Halawa, reporting that tanks and drones had fired 'even as we were fleeing'. The Israeli military said it was reviewing reports of casualties from fire by its troops after a group of people approached soldiers in an area near the militarised Netzarim Corridor. Israel has said that previous shootings near GHF aid sites have been provoked by the approach of 'suspects' towards soldiers. Witnesses and humanitarian groups have said that many of the shootings took place without warning. 'Death trap' The killing of aid seekers has become an almost daily occurrence since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) took over the distribution of food and other vital supplies. The foundation launched its aid distribution programme in late May after Israel had completely cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, prompting warnings of mass famine. The United Nations has refused to work with the GHF, citing concerns that it prioritises Israeli military objectives over humanitarian needs, and condemned it for its 'weaponisation' of aid. The GHF distribution sites have been plagued by scenes of chaos and carnage. More than 400 people have been killed and 1,000 wounded by Israeli soldiers since the GHF aid rollout began. The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, said on Tuesday that the system for aid distribution in Gaza was 'an abomination'. 'The newly created so-called aid mechanism is an abomination that humiliates and degrades desperate people,' said at a news conference in Berlin. 'It is a death trap costing more lives than it saves.' In a letter published on Monday, the International Commission of Jurists — a human rights NGO of prominent lawyers and judges — joined 14 other groups in condemning the GHF and calling for 'an end to private militarized humanitarian aid operations in Gaza'. Philip Grant, executive director of Geneva-based NGO TRIAL International, said GHF's model of militarised and privatised aid delivery 'violates core humanitarian principles'. He added that those who enabled or profited from the GHF's work faced a 'real risk of prosecution for complicity in war crimes, including the forcible transfer of civilians and the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare'.

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