Eight people seeking food among at least 18 killed by Israeli fire in Gaza
Near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution site, Yahia Youssef, who had come to seek aid on Saturday morning, described a panicked scene now grimly familiar.
Advertisement
After helping carry out three people wounded by gunshots, he said he looked around and saw many others lying on the ground bleeding.
'It's the same daily episode,' Mr Youssef said.
In response to questions about several witness accounts of violence at the northernmost of the Israeli-backed American contractor's four sites, the GHF media office said 'nothing (happened) at or near our sites'.
The episode came a day after US officials visited one site and the US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called GHF's distribution 'an incredible feat'.
Advertisement
International outrage has mounted as the group's efforts to deliver aid to hunger-stricken Gaza have been marred by violence and controversy.
'We weren't close to them (the troops) and there was no threat,' Abed Salah, a man in his 30s who was among the crowds close to the GHF site near Netzarim corridor, said. 'I escaped death miraculously.'
Families of hostages protest Tel Aviv, Israel (Ariel Schalit/AP)
The danger facing aid seekers in Gaza has compounded what international hunger experts this week called a 'worst-case scenario of famine' in the besieged enclave.
Israel's near 22-month military offensive against Hamas has shattered security in the territory of some 2.0 million Palestinians and made it nearly impossible to deliver food safely to starving people.
Advertisement
From May 27 to July 31, 859 people were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites, according to a United Nations report published on Thursday. Hundreds more have been killed along the routes of food convoys.
Israel and GHF have said they have only fired warning shots and that the toll has been exaggerated.
Health officials reported that Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed at least 18 Palestinians on Saturday, including three whose bodies were transported from the vicinity of a distribution site to a central Gaza hospital along with 36 others who were wounded.
Officials said 10 of Saturday's casualties were killed by strikes in central and southern Gaza.
Advertisement
Nasser Hospital said it received the bodies of five people killed in two separate strikes on tents sheltering displaced people.
The dead include two brothers and a relative, who were killed when a strike hit their tent close to a main thoroughfare in Khan Younis.
Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv, families of Israeli hostages protested and urged Israel's government to push harder for the release of their loved ones, including those shown in footage released by militant groups earlier this week.
US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff joined them a day after visiting Gaza and a week after walking away from ceasefire talks in Qatar, blaming Hamas's intransigence and pledging to find other ways to free hostages and make Gaza safe.
Advertisement
Of the 251 hostages who were abducted when Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on October 7 2023, about 20 are believed to be alive in Gaza.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza, released separate videos of individual hostages this week, triggering outrage among hostage families and Israeli society.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government.
The UN and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Healthocide': experts warn of rise in targeting of health services in conflict
Targeting medics and hospitals in acts of war should be called 'healthocide', academics have urged, amid an increase in such attacks in recent years. Health services are increasingly deliberately under attack and medics are facing violence and abuse in conflict zones around the world – in particular in Gaza, but also in Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria and El Salvador. This is despite the longstanding principle under international humanitarian law of medical neutrality, which protects healthcare workers and facilities during armed conflict and civil unrest, enabling them to provide medical care to those in need. In a commentary published in the British Medical Journal, Dr Joelle Abi-Rached and colleagues of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon wrote: 'Both in Gaza and Lebanon, healthcare facilities have not only been directly targeted, but access to care has also been obstructed, including incidents where ambulances have been prevented from reaching the injured, or deliberately attacked. 'What is becoming clear is that healthcare workers and facilities are no longer afforded the protection guaranteed by international humanitarian law.' The authors cite data from Israel's full-scale invasion of Gaza, which has resulted in at least 986 medical workers' deaths. Recent figures from the Healthcare Workers Watch show that 28 doctors from Gaza are being held inside Israeli prisons without any charge, eight them senior consultants in surgery, orthopaedics, intensive care, cardiology and paediatrics. The World Health Organization's representative for the West Bank and Gaza stated at the UN security council in January that hospitals in Gaza had 'turned into battlegrounds', while the healthcare system was being 'systematically dismantled and driven to the brink of collapse'. Healthcare workers in Gaza who were among the hundreds detained by the Israeli military who spoke to the Guardian for the Doctors in Detention project in early 2025 believed they were targeted because they were doctors. They shared harrowing testimonies of torture, beatings, starvation and humiliation, including being constantly beaten and kept in stress positions for hours at a time, and having loud music played nonstop to prevent them from sleeping. They were also denied food, water, showers and changes of clothes. Lebanon's ministry of public health has found that between 8 October 2023 and 27 January 2025, 217 healthcare workers were killed by the Israel Defense Forces, 177 ambulances were damaged, and 68 attacks on hospitals were recorded. Figures from the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition recorded 3,623 attacks on or obstruction of healthcare in 2024, the highest number ever documented. These attacks included doctors, nurses and allied healthcare professionals who were beaten, arbitrarily arrested, kidnapped, tortured and killed; patients shot in their beds or dragged to detention centres; and hospitals that were deliberately bombed and raided. The authors of the BMJ article are calling on doctors to 'forsake the principle of medical neutrality' and speak out against 'healthocide' or face emboldening future violators. This might include advocating for enforcement of justice and international humanitarian law, and documenting and exposing abuses of medical neutrality. Writing in the Guardian, Maarten van der Heijden, a global health lawyer and researcher at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, noted that the international humanitarian laws, the Geneva conventions, leave 'considerable room for interpretation and forgoes accountability', allowing hospitals to be bombed if it is considered 'harmful to the enemy'. The British Medical Association's medical ethics committee chair, Dr Andrew Green, said: 'In recent years, doctors have been devastated to see the appalling increase in attacks on healthcare, patients and staff in conflict zones, and the disregard for medical neutrality and international humanitarian law.' He noted that although there were examples around the world, Gaza was the most severe given that 'the population is both at risk of imminent famine, while health systems necessary to look after the starving have been systematically obliterated and health workers killed and arbitrarily detained.' He urged international medical associations, NGOs, governments and the UN to 'call out when we see human and health rights abused, and hold those breaking international humanitarian law accountable'. 'Those with power must use all levers at their disposal to ensure the provision of humanitarian aid and urgent healthcare to the world's most vulnerable. One clear step would be the establishment of a UN special rapporteur on the protection of health in armed conflict,' he added. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office minister Hamish Falconer has previously said that the UK government is urging the Israeli authorities to ensure that 'incidents are investigated transparently and that those responsible are held to account and lessons learned'.
ITV News
8 hours ago
- ITV News
Family of man who died from high cholesterol condition urges others to get tested
A Cheshire family say the tragic loss of a family member led to the discovery of a hidden genetic condition – and a potentially life-saving diagnosis for multiple family members. Mike Clarke, 29, died a week after collapsing from a heart attack in 2015 during a football match - despite medical intervention where stents were fitted in his heart. Blood tests revealed Mike had high cholesterol, something his family had always struggled with but never fully understood. Mike's brother Simon said: 'After my brother's death, we all went for tests, I was found to have high cholesterol too and received support at Leighton Hospital's lipid clinic. "Medication helped, but there were still unanswered questions like why was this affecting so many of us?' Simon's Consultant referred him to a new pilot service screening for Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (FH), a hereditary condition that causes extremely high cholesterol from birth and significantly increases the risk of early heart disease if left untreated. Simon, from Winsford, underwent genetic testing through the service and a few months later received confirmation that he had FH. 'It was hard to hear. No one wants a lifelong condition but it wasn't really about me. It was about getting answers for my family,' said Simon. 'The genetic testing means I now know I have a condition that, even with diet and exercise, will always be present. "It allows us to plan and make sure that when the children in our family reach the age where they can be tested, we take that step and don't ignore it.' Thanks to Simon's diagnosis, cascade testing began across the family. His nephew was just four when he lost his father. Now 13, he has also tested positive for FH and has already started medication. 'He's been on treatment since he was 11 – that's two years of risk reduction already. We can't change what happened to my brother, but we can try to stop it happening again.' Simon's story is just one of many that highlight the impact of the FH genetic testing pilot launched in 2022 across Cheshire and Merseyside. Now, the service has been commissioned on a recurrent basis by NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, with support from Health Innovation North West Coast. The service is delivered by Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and offers genetic testing to individuals with suspected FH, followed by family cascade testing for first-degree relatives - parents, siblings and children. Those diagnosed receive a personalised care plan, including lipid-lowering therapy. Since the service was launched: FH affects around one in 250 people, but fewer than five per cent of cases are diagnosed. As part of the Lifespan Pathway for Lipid Management 2024, services in Cheshire and Merseyside now aim to offer a cholesterol test to all adults under 40 at least once to help close that gap.
The Guardian
10 hours ago
- The Guardian
The Descendants: the search for Tom Wills
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. And support and counselling specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is available at 1 3 YARN, that's 13 92 76.
