Charities call for end to Israeli-backed aid group as dozens more die in Gaza
The deaths came after Israeli forces killed at least 74 people in Gaza earlier on Monday with air strikes that left 30 dead at a seaside cafe and gunfire that killed 23 as Palestinians tried to get desperately needed food aid, witnesses and health officials said.
The war has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead were women and children.
The Health Ministry on Tuesday afternoon said the bodies of 116 people killed by Israeli strikes had been taken to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours.
The Hamas attack in October 2023 that sparked the war killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Some 50 hostages remain, many of them thought to be dead.
More than 165 major international charities and non-governmental organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty, called on Tuesday for an immediate end to the Gaza Humanitarian Fund.
'Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,' the group said in a joint news release.
The call by the charities and NGOs was the latest sign of trouble for the GHF — a secretive US and Israeli-backed initiative headed by an evangelical leader who is a close ally of Donald Trump.
GHF started distributing aid on May 26, following a nearly three-month Israeli blockade which has pushed Gaza's population of more than two million people to the brink of famine.
In a statement on Tuesday, the organisation said it has delivered more than 52 million meals over five weeks.
'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 statement said.
'We are ready to collaborate and help them get their aid to people in need. At the end of the day, the Palestinian people need to be fed.'
Last month, the organisation said there had been no violence in or around its distribution centres and that its personnel had not opened fire.
According to Gaza's Health Ministry, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed around the chaotic and controversial aid distribution programme over the past month.
Palestinians are often forced to travel long distances to access the GHF hubs in hopes of obtaining aid.
The GHF is the linchpin of a new aid system that took distribution away from aid groups led by the UN.
The new mechanism limits food distribution to a small number of hubs under guard of armed contractors, where people must go to pick it up. Currently four hubs are set up, all close to Israeli military positions.
Israel had demanded an alternative plan because it accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid. The United Nations and aid groups deny there was significant diversion, and say the new mechanism allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles and will not be effective.
The Israeli military said it had recently taken steps to improve organisation in the area.
Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of hiding among civilians because they operate in populated areas.
Of the latest seven deaths by Israeli fire, three occurred in Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis, while four were killed in central Gaza.
More than 65 others were wounded, according to the Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, and the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, which received the casualties.
They were among thousands of starved Palestinians who gather at night to take aid from passing trucks in the area of the Netzarim route in central Gaza.
An 11-year-old girl was killed on Tuesday when an Israeli strike hit her family's tent west of Khan Younis, according to the Kuwait field hospital that received her body.
The UN Palestinian aid agency also said Israel's military struck one of its schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza City on Monday. The strike caused no casualties but caused significant damage, UNRWA said.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the occupied West Bank said Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in the territory, including a 15-year-old, in two separate incidents.
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Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Deaths in Gaza rise significantly when a controversial group distributes aid, Sky News analysis reveals
Sky News analysis shows that aid distributions by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are associated with a significant increase in deaths. Warning: This article contains descriptions of people being killed and images of blood on a hospital floor. The US and Israeli-backed group has been primarily responsible for aid distribution since Israel lifted its 11-week blockade of the Gaza Strip last month. The GHF distributes aid from four militarised Secure Distribution Sites (SDSs) - three of which are in the far south of the Gaza Strip. Under the previous system, the UN had distributed aid through hundreds of sites across the territory. According to Gaza's health ministry, 600 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid from GHF sites, which charities and the UN have branded "death traps". The UN put the figure at 410, but has not updated this number since 24 June. Both the UN and health ministry source their figures from hospitals near the aid sites. Speaking to Sky News, GHF chief Johnnie Moore disputed that these deaths were connected with his organisation's operations. "Almost anything that happens in the Gaza Strip is going to take place in proximity to something," he said. "Our effort is actually working despite a disinformation campaign, that is very deliberate and meant to shut down our efforts. "We just want to feed Gazans. That's the only thing that we want to do." However, new analysis by Sky's Data & Forensics Unit shows that deaths in Gaza have spiked during days with more GHF distributions. On days when GHF conducts just two distributions or fewer, health officials report an average of 48 deaths and 189 injuries across the Gaza Strip. On days with five or six GHF distributions, authorities have reported almost three times as many casualties. Out of 77 distributions at GHF sites between 5 June and 1 July, Sky News found that 23 ended in reports of bloodshed (30%). At one site, SDS4 in the central Gaza Strip, as many as half of all distributions were followed by reports of fatal shootings. Sky News spoke to one woman who had been attending SDS4 for 10 days straight. "I witnessed death first-hand - bodies lay bleeding on the ground all around me," says Huda. "This is not right. Food should be delivered to UN warehouses, and this entire operation must be shut down." Huda says that the crowds are forced to dodge bombs and bullets "just to get a bag of rice or pasta". "You may come back, you may not," she says. "I was injured by shrapnel in my leg. Despite that, I go back, because we really have nothing in our tent." One of the deadliest incidents at SDS4 took place in the early hours of 24 June. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli forces opened fire as people advanced towards aid trucks carrying food to the site, which was due to open. "It was a massacre," said Ahmed Halawa. He said that tanks and drones fired at people "even as we were fleeing". At least 31 people were killed, according to medics at two nearby hospitals. Footage from that morning shows the floor of one of the hospitals, al Awda, covered in blood. The IDF says it is reviewing the incident. 15:58 Issues of crowd control Unnamed soldiers who served near the aid sites told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that they were instructed to use gunfire as a method of crowd control. An IDF spokesperson told Sky News that it "strongly rejected" the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians. "To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians," the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are "being examined by the relevant IDF authorities". Eyewitness testimony and footage posted to social media suggest that crowd control is a frequent problem at the sites. The video below, uploaded on 12 June, shows a crowd rushing into SDS1, in Gaza's far southwest. What sounds like explosions are audible in the background. Footage from the same site, uploaded on 15 June, shows Palestinians searching for food among hundreds of aid parcels scattered across the ground. Sam Rose, the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, describes the distribution process as a "free-for-all". "What they're doing is they're loading up the boxes on the ground and then people just rush in," he says. Sky News has found that the sites typically run out of food within just nine minutes. In a quarter of cases (23%), the food is finished by the time the site was due to officially open. 27:55 Confusing communications Sky News analysis suggests that the issue may be being compounded by poor communications from GHF. Between 19 June and 1 July, 86% of distributions were announced with less than 30 minutes' notice. One in five distributions was not announced at all prior to the site opening. The GHF instructs Palestinians to take particular routes to the aid centres, and to wait at specified locations until the official opening times. The map for SDS1 instructs Palestinians to take a narrow agricultural lane that no longer exists, while the maps for SDS2 and SDS3 give waiting points that are deep inside IDF-designated combat zones. The maps do not make the boundaries of combat zones clear or specify when it is safe for Palestinians to enter them. The same is true for SDS4, the only distribution site outside Gaza's far south. Its waiting point is located 1.2 miles (2km) inside an IDF combat zone. The official map also provides no access route from the northern half of Gaza, including Gaza City, across the heavily militarised Netzarim corridor. "They don't know what they're doing," says UNRWA's Sam Rose. "They don't have anyone working on these operations who has any experience of operating, of administering food distributions because anyone who did have that experience wouldn't want to be part of it because this isn't how you treat people." Once the sites are officially open, Palestinians are allowed to travel the rest of the way. The distance from waiting point to aid site is typically over a kilometre, making it difficult for Palestinians to reach the aid site before the food runs out. The shortest distance is at SDS4 - 689m. At a pace of 4km per hour, this would take around 10 minutes to cover. But of the 18 distributions at this site which were announced in advance, just two lasted longer than 10 minutes before the food ran out. "We don't have time to pick anything up," says Huda, who has been visiting SDS4 for the past 10 days. In all that time, she says, all she had managed to take was a small bag of rice. "I got it from the floor," she says. "We didn't get anything else." More than 200 charities and non-governmental organisations have called for the closure of GHF and the reinstatement of previous, UN-led mechanisms of aid distribution. In a joint statement issued on 1 July, some of the world's largest humanitarian groups accused the GHF of violating international humanitarian principles. They said the scheme was forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarised zones where they face daily gunfire.
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
Deaths in Gaza rise significantly when a controversial group distributes aid, analysis reveals
Sky News analysis shows that aid distributions by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are associated with a significant increase in deaths. Warning: This article contains descriptions of people being killed and images of blood on a hospital floor. The US and Israeli-backed group has been primarily responsible for aid distribution since Israel lifted its 11-week blockade of the Gaza Strip last month. The GHF distributes aid from four militarised Secure Distribution Sites (SDSs) - three of which are in the far south of the Gaza Strip. Under the previous system, the UN had distributed aid through hundreds of sites across the territory. According to Gaza's health ministry, 600 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid from GHF sites, which charities and the UN have branded "death traps". The UN put the figure at 410, but has not updated this number since 24 June. Both the UN and health ministry source their figures from hospitals near the aid sites. Speaking to Sky News, GHF chief Johnnie Moore disputed that these deaths were connected with his organisation's operations. "Almost anything that happens in the Gaza Strip is going to take place in proximity to something," he said. "Our effort is actually working despite a disinformation campaign, that is very deliberate and meant to shut down our efforts. "We just want to feed Gazans. That's the only thing that we want to do." However, new analysis by Sky's Data & Forensics Unit shows that deaths in Gaza have spiked during days with more GHF distributions. On days when GHF conducts just two distributions or fewer, health officials report an average of 48 deaths and 189 injuries across the Gaza Strip. On days with five or six GHF distributions, authorities have reported almost three times as many casualties. Out of 77 distributions at GHF sites between 5 June and 1 July, Sky News found that 23 ended in reports of bloodshed (30%). At one site, SDS4 in the central Gaza Strip, as many as half of all distributions were followed by reports of fatal shootings. Sky News spoke to one woman who had been attending SDS4 for 10 days straight. "I witnessed death first-hand - bodies lay bleeding on the ground all around me," says Huda. "This is not right. Food should be delivered to UN warehouses, and this entire operation must be shut down." Huda says that the crowds are forced to dodge bombs and bullets "just to get a bag of rice or pasta". "You may come back, you may not," she says. "I was injured by shrapnel in my leg. Despite that, I go back, because we really have nothing in our tent." One of the deadliest incidents at SDS4 took place in the early hours of 24 June. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli forces opened fire as people advanced towards aid trucks carrying food to the site, which was due to open. "It was a massacre," said Ahmed Halawa. He said that tanks and drones fired at people "even as we were fleeing". At least 31 people were killed, according to medics at two nearby hospitals. Footage from that morning shows the floor of one of the hospitals, al Awda, covered in blood. The IDF says it is reviewing the incident. 15:58 Issues of crowd control Unnamed soldiers who served near the aid sites told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that they were instructed to use gunfire as a method of crowd control. An IDF spokesperson told Sky News that it "strongly rejected" the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians. "To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians," the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are "being examined by the relevant IDF authorities". Eyewitness testimony and footage posted to social media suggest that crowd control is a frequent problem at the sites. The video below, uploaded on 12 June, shows a crowd rushing into SDS1, in Gaza's far southwest. What sounds like explosions are audible in the background. Footage from the same site, uploaded on 15 June, shows Palestinians searching for food among hundreds of aid parcels scattered across the ground. Sam Rose, the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, describes the distribution process as a "free-for-all". "What they're doing is they're loading up the boxes on the ground and then people just rush in," he says. Sky News has found that the sites typically run out of food within just nine minutes. In a quarter of cases (23%), the food is finished by the time the site was due to officially open. 27:55 Confusing communications Sky News analysis suggests that the issue may be being compounded by poor communications from GHF. Between 19 June and 1 July, 86% of distributions were announced with less than 30 minutes' notice. One in five distributions was not announced at all prior to the site opening. The GHF instructs Palestinians to take particular routes to the aid centres, and to wait at specified locations until the official opening times. The map for SDS1 instructs Palestinians to take a narrow agricultural lane that no longer exists, while the maps for SDS2 and SDS3 give waiting points that are deep inside IDF-designated combat zones. The maps do not make the boundaries of combat zones clear or specify when it is safe for Palestinians to enter them. The same is true for SDS4, the only distribution site outside Gaza's far south. Its waiting point is located 1.2 miles (2km) inside an IDF combat zone. The official map also provides no access route from the northern half of Gaza, including Gaza City, across the heavily militarised Netzarim corridor. "They don't know what they're doing," says UNRWA's Sam Rose. "They don't have anyone working on these operations who has any experience of operating, of administering food distributions because anyone who did have that experience wouldn't want to be part of it because this isn't how you treat people." Once the sites are officially open, Palestinians are allowed to travel the rest of the way. The distance from waiting point to aid site is typically over a kilometre, making it difficult for Palestinians to reach the aid site before the food runs out. The shortest distance is at SDS4 - 689m. At a pace of 4km per hour, this would take around 10 minutes to cover. But of the 18 distributions at this site which were announced in advance, just two lasted longer than 10 minutes before the food ran out. "We don't have time to pick anything up," says Huda, who has been visiting SDS4 for the past 10 days. In all that time, she says, all she had managed to take was a small bag of rice. "I got it from the floor," she says. "We didn't get anything else." More than 200 charities and non-governmental organisations have called for the closure of GHF and the reinstatement of previous, UN-led mechanisms of aid distribution. In a joint statement issued on 1 July, some of the world's largest humanitarian groups accused the GHF of violating international humanitarian principles. They said the scheme was forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarised zones where they face daily gunfire.
Sky News
5 hours ago
- Sky News
Rise in Gaza deaths linked to aid distributions by controversial group
Sky News analysis shows that aid distributions by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are associated with a significant increase in deaths. Warning: This article contains descriptions of people being killed and images of blood on a hospital floor. The US and Israeli-backed group has been primarily responsible for aid distribution since Israel lifted its 11-week blockade of the Gaza Strip last month. The GHF distributes aid from four militarised Secure Distribution Sites (SDSs) - three of which are in the far south of the Gaza Strip. Under the previous system, the UN had distributed aid through hundreds of sites across the territory. According to Gaza's health ministry, 600 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid from GHF sites, which charities and the UN have branded "death traps". The UN put the figure at 410, but has not updated this number since 24 June. Both the UN and health ministry source their figures from hospitals near the aid sites. Speaking to Sky News, GHF chief Johnnie Moore disputed that these deaths were connected with his organisation's operations. "Almost anything that happens in the Gaza Strip is going to take place in proximity to something," he said. "Our effort is actually working despite a disinformation campaign, that is very deliberate and meant to shut down our efforts. "We just want to feed Gazans. That's the only thing that we want to do." However, new analysis by Sky's Data & Forensics Unit shows that deaths in Gaza have spiked during days with more GHF distributions. On days when GHF conducts just two distributions or fewer, health officials report an average of 48 deaths and 189 injuries across the Gaza Strip. On days with five or six GHF distributions, authorities have reported almost three times as many casualties. Out of 77 distributions at GHF sites between 5 June and 1 July, Sky News found that 23 ended in reports of bloodshed (30%). At one site, SDS4 in the central Gaza Strip, as many as half of all distributions were followed by reports of fatal shootings. Sky News spoke to one woman who had been attending SDS4 for 10 days straight. "I witnessed death first-hand - bodies lay bleeding on the ground all around me," says Huda. "This is not right. Food should be delivered to UN warehouses, and this entire operation must be shut down." Huda says that the crowds are forced to dodge bombs and bullets "just to get a bag of rice or pasta". "You may come back, you may not," she says. "I was injured by shrapnel in my leg. Despite that, I go back, because we really have nothing in our tent." One of the deadliest incidents at SDS4 took place in the early hours of 24 June. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli forces opened fire as people advanced towards aid trucks carrying food to the site, which was due to open. "It was a massacre," said Ahmed Halawa. He said that tanks and drones fired at people "even as we were fleeing". At least 31 people were killed, according to medics at two nearby hospitals. Footage from that morning shows the floor of one of the hospitals, al Awda, covered in blood. The IDF says it is reviewing the incident. 15:58 Issues of crowd control Unnamed soldiers who served near the aid sites told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that they were instructed to use gunfire as a method of crowd control. An IDF spokesperson told Sky News that it "strongly rejected" the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians. "To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians," the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are "being examined by the relevant IDF authorities". Eyewitness testimony and footage posted to social media suggest that crowd control is a frequent problem at the sites. The video below, uploaded on 12 June, shows a crowd rushing into SDS1, in Gaza's far southwest. What sounds like explosions are audible in the background. Footage from the same site, uploaded on 15 June, shows Palestinians searching for food among hundreds of aid parcels scattered across the ground. Sam Rose, the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, describes the distribution process as a "free-for-all". "What they're doing is they're loading up the boxes on the ground and then people just rush in," he says. Sky News has found that the sites typically run out of food within just nine minutes. In a quarter of cases (23%), the food is finished by the time the site was due to officially open. 27:55 Confusing communications Sky News analysis suggests that the issue may be being compounded by poor communications from GHF. Between 19 June and 1 July, 86% of distributions were announced with less than 30 minutes' notice. One in five distributions was not announced at all prior to the site opening. The GHF instructs Palestinians to take particular routes to the aid centres, and to wait at specified locations until the official opening times. The map for SDS1 instructs Palestinians to take a narrow agricultural lane that no longer exists, while the maps for SDS2 and SDS3 give waiting points that are deep inside IDF-designated combat zones. The maps do not make the boundaries of combat zones clear or specify when it is safe for Palestinians to enter them. The same is true for SDS4, the only distribution site outside Gaza's far south. Its waiting point is located 1.2 miles (2km) inside an IDF combat zone. The official map also provides no access route from the northern half of Gaza, including Gaza City, across the heavily militarised Netzarim corridor. "They don't know what they're doing," says UNRWA's Sam Rose. "They don't have anyone working on these operations who has any experience of operating, of administering food distributions because anyone who did have that experience wouldn't want to be part of it because this isn't how you treat people." Once the sites are officially open, Palestinians are allowed to travel the rest of the way. The distance from waiting point to aid site is typically over a kilometre, making it difficult for Palestinians to reach the aid site before the food runs out. The shortest distance is at SDS4 - 689m. At a pace of 4km per hour, this would take around 10 minutes to cover. But of the 18 distributions at this site which were announced in advance, just two lasted longer than 10 minutes before the food ran out. "We don't have time to pick anything up," says Huda, who has been visiting SDS4 for the past 10 days. In all that time, she says, all she had managed to take was a small bag of rice. "I got it from the floor," she says. "We didn't get anything else." More than 200 charities and non-governmental organisations have called for the closure of GHF and the reinstatement of previous, UN-led mechanisms of aid distribution. In a joint statement issued on 1 July, some of the world's largest humanitarian groups accused the GHF of violating international humanitarian principles. They said the scheme was forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarised zones where they face daily gunfire.
