Israeli fire and air strikes killed at least 35 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, most of them near a site operated by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), local health authorities said.
Medics at Al-Awda and Al-Aqsa hospitals in central Gaza areas, where most of the casualties were moved to, said at least 15 people were killed as they tried to approach the GHF site near the Netzarim corridor.
The rest were killed in separate attacks across the enclave, they added. There has been no immediate comment by the Israeli military or the GHF on Saturday’s incidents.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral.
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The Gaza ministry for health said in a statement on Saturday that at least 274 people have so far been killed, and more than 2,000 wounded, near aid distribution sites since the GHF began operations in Gaza.
Hamas, which denies Israeli charges that it steals aid, accused Israel of “employing hunger as a weapon of war and turning aid distribution sites into traps of mass deaths of innocent civilians”.
Later on Saturday, health officials at Shifa Hospital in Gaza said Israeli fire killed at least 12 Palestinians, who gathered to wait for aid trucks along the coastal road north of the strip, taking Saturday’s death toll to at least 35.
The Israeli military ordered residents of Khan Younis and the nearby towns of Abassan and Bani Suhaila in the southern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and head west towards the so-called humanitarian zone, saying it would forcefully work against “terror organisations” in the area.
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 7th, 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.
Despite efforts by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar to restore a ceasefire in Gaza, neither Israel nor Hamas has shown willingness to back down on core demands, with each side blaming the other for the failure to reach a deal. – Reuters
