Gaza civil defence says Israeli fire kills 73 aid seekers
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 centres.
The UN said earlier this month that nearly 800 aid-seekers had been killed since late May, including on the routes of aid convoys.
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New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Awdah Hathaleen was a 31-year-old English teacher and peaceful anti-settlement activist. He was allegedly shot by an Israeli settler, previously sanctioned by the US, in a confrontation captured on video. A consultant for the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, Hathaleen's murder has made global headlines and drawn international condemnation. He is one of 16 Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli civilians in the West Bank since the 7 October 2023 attacks, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha). Ten more Palestinians have been killed in circumstances in which the UN could not determine whether the perpetrator was a member of the Israeli forces or a settler. Israeli authorities are holding his body, preventing residents in Umm al-Khair – one of a string of communities in the South Hebron Hills – and his family from holding a funeral. 'By God, we won't eat until he arrives' - Ikhlas Hazalin, Awdah Hathaleen's sister-in-law For three days, his wife and nieces have been on hunger strike, saying they will refuse to eat until Hathaleen's body is returned. At midnight on Thursday, dozens of women in the village, including teenagers and those in their 70s, joined the protest, according to local reports and Hathaleen's sister-in-law. The women were compelled to participate after Israeli authorities offered to return Hathaleen's body on Wednesday evening, but under conditions: he would be handed over at 1am and only 15 people could attend his funeral. 'We saw that they were stubborn about not releasing him and wouldn't hand him over to us except on their terms,' Hazalin said. 'These are terms we will never accept. We, the people of Umm al-Khair, will never accept them.' Escalating violence Hathaleen's killing comes as observers and human rights organisations warn of state-backed settler violence displacing Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank, which has escalated dramatically following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. At least 2,894 Palestinians have been displaced by settler violence since January 2023, with 740 settler violence incidents recorded between January and June of this year, according to Ocha. Allegra Pacheco, head of the West Bank Protection Consortium, a group of international NGOs focused on protecting vulnerable Palestinian communities in the West Bank from forced displacement and attacks, said settler violence in the West Bank is 'completely connected' to Gaza. "The inhumanity and impunity in the West Bank are spillovers from the Gaza genocide,' Pacheco told MEE. 'What the soldiers and settlers are allowed to do, what the politicians are allowed to say… The call for destroying Gaza, for settling Gaza - all of that and the lack of public rejection of that. This is what you hear all the time on Israeli media. That's what reigns in the West Bank too.' 'The inhumanity and impunity in the West Bank are spillovers from the Gaza genocide' - Allegra Pacheco, West Bank Protection Consortium The current residents in Umm al-Khair are refugees from the Nakba, the forced expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 which led to the creation of Israel, and have been living in the village on land they purchased for over 50 years. The neighbouring Israeli settlement of Carmel was built in the 1980s on land belonging to residents. Pacheco, who was in Umm al-Khair on Thursday morning, said the residents have been facing a 'coercive environment' for years. 'No planning, water restrictions, no building, 16 rounds of house demolitions. Everything has a demolition order,' she said. 'But they've stayed. And they committed today firmly: we will stay until the last martyr.' In addition to their hunger strike, the women in the village also told Pacheco that they guarded their homes and land by themselves on Wednesday evening because there were so few men left to do it. "The Israelis arrested community members every night. They effectively were emptying the community of men and the women, in the last few nights, were on their own more and more,' she said. 'Every night, the men have this guard shift where they guard the houses from settlers. Last night, there were so few men that the women decided as a group [that] we have to do one of these shifts because there are no men left.' She added: 'I said to them, 'What would you have done if a settler had come?' A woman said, 'I don't know, but God gave me this sense of power that I could do anything and I just did it.'' West Bank 'emergency' Yinon Levi, the settler accused of killing Hathaleen, was previously sanctioned by the US under the Biden administration, but sanctions were lifted by President Donald Trump in January. The UK and the EU still have sanctions on Levi in place. On Tuesday, a court in Jerusalem released Levi from custody and placed him under house arrest. Israeli settler accused of killing No Other Land activist released under house arrest Read More » "This is the perversion of justice and of the narrative,' Pacheco said. 'The people who were injured are in prison. The people who tried to prevent this are in prison. The people who acted in self-defence are in prison. And the guy with the smoking gun - the guy who shot the gun on video - is sitting at home and drinking coffee.' She called on international leaders to provide a protection force for Palestinians in the West Bank immediately and not wait until September, when France, the UK, Canada and others are set to formally recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly. 'People will be dead by then. We are in an emergency in the West Bank,' she said. In Umm al-Khair, the women say they hope their hunger strike will be effective for this moment. "Perhaps, God willing, we can pressure them and there will be pressure to hand him over to us. The men also supported us and said they would join us within 24 hours if they don't hand him over," Hazalin said. "By God, we won't eat until he arrives."
