UN agency says Israeli tanks and snipers opened fire on Gaza crowd seeking aid
The World Food Programme condemned the violence that erupted in northern Gaza as Palestinians tried to reach a convoy of trucks carrying food.
Advertisement
The Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 80 people were killed in the incident.
The Israeli military has said it fired warning shots 'to remove an immediate threat', but has questioned the death toll reported by the Palestinians.
The accusation by a major aid agency that has had generally good working relations with Israel builds on descriptions by witnesses and others, who also said Israel opened fire on the crowd.
Smoke and flames erupt from an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)
The bloodshed surrounding aid access highlights the increasingly precarious situation for people in Gaza who have been desperately seeking out food and other assistance, as the war shows no signs of ending.
Advertisement
Israel and Hamas are still engaged in ceasefire talks, but there appears to be no breakthrough and it is not clear whether any truce would bring the war to a lasting halt.
As the talks proceed, the death toll in the war-ravaged territory has climbed to more than 58,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Its count does not distinguish between militants and civilians but the ministry says more than half of the dead are women and children.
The ministry is part of the Hamas government, but the UN and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
Advertisement
Israel has meanwhile widened its evacuation orders for the territory to include an area that has been somewhat less hard-hit than others, indicating a new battleground may be opening up and squeezing Palestinians into ever tinier stretches of Gaza.
In northern Gaza on Sunday, the Health Ministry, witnesses and a UN official said Israeli forces opened fire toward crowds who tried to get food from a 25-truck convoy that had entered the hard-hit area.
The WFP statement, which said the crowd surrounding its convoy 'came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire,' backs up those claims.
The statement did not specify a death toll, saying only the incident resulted in the loss of 'countless lives.'
Advertisement
'These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation,' it said, adding that the incident occurred despite assurances from Israeli authorities that aid delivery would improve.
Part of those assurances, it said, was that armed forces would not be present nor engage along aid routes.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the WFP claims. Military spokesperson Lt Col Nadav Shoshani posted on X on Sunday that soldiers were told 'do not engage, do not shoot'.
Israel has not allowed international media to enter Gaza throughout the war, and the competing claims could not be independently verified.
Advertisement
Sunday's incident comes as Palestinian access to aid in the territory has been greatly diminished, and seeking that aid has become perilous.
A US and Israeli-backed aid system that has wrested some aid delivery from traditional providers like the UN has been wracked by violence and chaos as Palestinians heading toward its aid distribution sides have come under fire.
The group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, had said that the majority of the reported violence has not occurred at its sites.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Gaza faces 'man-made' mass starvation due to Israeli aid blockade, World Health Organization says
The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said Gaza is suffering "man-made mass starvation" because of an Israeli blockade on aid to the enclave. Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference that the population of Gaza is "facing yet another killer on top of bombs and bullets - starvation". The WHO said a "deadly surge" in malnutrition has caused the deaths of at least 21 children in 2025, but stressed this figure is likely to be the tip of the iceberg. Centres for treating malnutrition are full of patients but do not have sufficient supplies for emergency feeding, it added. In July alone, 5,100 children have so far been admitted to malnutrition programmes, said Dr Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO's representative for the occupied Palestinian territories. Some 800 of those children were severely emaciated, he said. Mr Ghebreyesus said: "I don't know what you would call it other than mass starvation, and it's man-made, and that's very clear." "This is because of [the] blockade," he continued, adding that 95% of households in Gaza are also facing severe water shortages. He said the UN and its humanitarian partners were unable to deliver any food for nearly 80 days between March and May, while an aid blockade was in place, and that the resumption of deliveries has been insufficient. There is no famine in Gaza, says Israel An Israeli government spokesperson told Sky News the food shortages have "been engineered by Hamas", before stating: "There is no famine in Gaza." Speaking on the News Hour with Mark Austin, David Mencer continued: "There is a famine of the truth and Israel will not stop telling it." He said aid is "flowing" into the enclave but Hamas "loots the trucks [and] deliberately endangers its own people". The fighters deny stealing food. Mr Mencer said Israel has allowed more than 4,400 aid trucks to enter Gaza since it lifted the blockade in May, adding that more than 700 are waiting to be picked up and distributed by the United Nations. That is an average of around 70 trucks a day, which is the lowest rate of the war and far below the 500-600 trucks a day the UN says is needed. "The problem is not Israel," he said. "The problem is Hamas." Supplies in Gaza 'totally depleted' The comments came after more than 100 aid and rights groups warned of mass starvation in Gaza on Wednesday morning - saying supplies have become "totally depleted". Large amounts of food, clean water and medical supplies are sitting untouched just outside Gaza, but the groups blamed Israel for its "restrictions", which they say is creating "chaos, starvation, and death". The situation has become so bad, aid agencies warned they were seeing even their own colleagues "waste away before their eyes". Israel, which controls all supplies entering Gaza, has denied it is responsible for shortages of food and other supplies. In a statement signed by 111 organisations, the groups said: "As the Israeli government's siege starves the people of Gaza, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families. "With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes. "The government of Israel's restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death." The groups called for governments to demand the lifting of all restrictions and for the restoration of a "principled, UN-led humanitarian response". The Norwegian Refugee Council, which backed the statement and is one of the largest independent aid organisations in Gaza, said it has no more supplies to distribute and some of its staff are starving - and accused Israel of paralysing its work. "Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left," Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the council, told the Reuters news agency. 4:10 United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said "starvation is knocking on every door" in the Palestinian territory, describing the situation as a "horror show". Officials in the Hamas-run strip said at least 101 people are known to have died of malnutrition during the conflict in Gaza, including 80 children, most of them in recent weeks. 6:22 Some food stocks in Gaza have run out since Israel cut off all supplies in March and then lifted the blockade in May with new measures it said were needed to prevent aid from being diverted to militant groups. Israel's Foreign Ministry has accused the organisations of "echoing Hamas propaganda". The UK and several other countries have condemned the current aid delivery model, which is backed by the Israeli and American governments. Gaza deteriorating by the day - but what will be done? Analysis by Lisa Holland, in Jerusalem The urgency of the call for action by aid and human rights groups screams out from the words in the letter. It feels like the situation is deteriorating by the day – the letter comes hours after the United Nations secretary-general described aid distribution and food shortages in Gaza as a "horror show". There is certainly momentum in the demands for a ceasefire and for aid supplies backed up in neighbouring countries to be allowed into Gaza. But will it have any impact? Israel acknowledges there has been a significant drop in the amount of aid reaching Gaza. But the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – now in charge of almost all aid distribution in Gaza – has fiercely hit back about its handling of the situation. However, Israel has given no public sign that it plans to do anything to alleviate the plight of hungry Gazans any time soon – instead shifting blame to the door of the UN. The UN used to run most aid distribution, but Israel stopped that in May claiming aid was falling into the hands of the militant group Hamas. So if there's – as yet – no sign of the aid chain being unblocked, what of the calls in the letter for a ceasefire? People say watch for movement by Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff. He is currently in Europe and if he goes on to Doha, where indirect talks are taking place between Hamas and Israel, that could signal some sort of progress towards a ceasefire. It has reportedly resulted in Israeli troops firing on Palestinian civilians in search of food on multiple occasions.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Former First Minister Humza Yousaf claims Israel is starving wife's family in Gaza
The former first minister of Scotland has claimed Israel is starving his wife's family in Gaza. Humza Yousaf and his wife Nadia El-Nakla said her cousin Sally, her four children and husband were being deliberately and forcefully starved by the Israeli government. Ms El-Nakla, an SNP councillor in Dundee, said her aunt Hanan and her children and grandchildren, including a seven-month-old baby, were also being starved. She said the town of Deir Al Balah, where her family live, was 'hit hard' by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). Posting a video alongside her husband on social media, she said: 'Starving people were being forced to run while being shot and bombed.' Mr Yousaf added: 'Sally is one of millions in Gaza. 'Her husband goes out all day searching for food, often to come home with nothing. 'And when I say home, I mean a tent and almost 40 degree heat.' He said that doctors in Gaza were becoming 'too weak to treat patients' while journalists were becoming 'too weak to report the silent killer of starvation'. Ms El-Nakla added: 'This is a deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people. 'Food and water are a mere kilometres away. 'This form of warfare is sickening and the stories and images from my family and millions of others in Gaza are absolutely gut-wrenching. 'Can you imagine not being able to feed your children yet knowing the food you so desperately need is only a few miles away?' Former SNP leader Mr Yousaf urged world leaders to take action to force Israel to allow more aid into Gaza. More than 100 aid agencies have warned that 'mass starvation' is spreading across Gaza as Israel is accused of not allowing enough food, and other supplies, into the area. The health ministry said 10 people have died from malnutrition in the last 24 hours. The UK was among 28 nations that accused Israel of the 'drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians' seeking food and water. Mr Yousaf's inlaws, Maged and Elizabeth El-Nakla, were trapped in Gaza for four weeks after visiting family when the war broke out after Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel. They later left through Egypt with other British nationals, although Mr Yousaf said his father-in-law had become a 'shell of a man' following their 'traumatic' month in the Middle-East. The UK Government and the Israeli embassy in London have been approached for comment.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Starvation in Gaza is destroying communities – and will leave generational scars
Starvation is not only killing Palestinians in Gaza one by one, but also destroying Palestinian society and inflicting permanent damage on bodies and minds, experts say. As hopes for a ceasefire rise, the threat from extreme hunger is particularly acute because Israel has continued to deploy food controls as a weapon against civilians during previous pauses in conventional fighting, and could do so again. Starvation forces the body to consume its own muscle and organs for energy, which can cause permanent injury, harms children's futures by stunting the growth of their bodies and minds, and may even damage the heath of survivors' children. It also destroys communities by turning people against each other in their desperation for food and forcing them to do shameful, humiliating or violent things to survive. Even if they recover physically, the trauma of having to choose between children, turn away relatives begging for food, sell their own bodies or a sister or a daughter for food, stays with them for life, famine experts say. 'You can approach starvation as a biological phenomenon experienced by individuals, but it is also a collective social experience,' said Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, and author of Mass Starvation: the History and Future of Famine. 'Very often that societal element – the trauma, the shame, the loss of dignity, the violation of taboos, the breaking of social bonds – is more significant in the memory of the experience of survivors than the individual biological experience.' 'All these traumas are the reason why the Irish took almost 150 years before they could memorialise what they experienced in the 1840s. Those who inflict starvation are aware of this, they know that what they're doing is actually dismantling a society.' This 'sociology of starvation' was outlined by Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer and Holocaust survivor who coined the word genocide then campaigned for it to be recognised as a crime in international law, de Waal said. In writings during the second world war, Lemkin 'spent a lot of time describing rations, rationing as a way of undermining groups'. The social impact of starvation means an aggressor can use food controls to create a dynamic that de Waal describes as 'genocidal humanitarianism', where just enough calories are provided to prevent mass death, but extreme hunger 'destroys the meaning of their life as a group'. International experts have warned repeatedly during the war that Gaza is approaching the internationally recognised threshold for famine, measured by factors including rates of death and malnutrition. Chris Newton, senior analyst at International Crisis Group and an expert in famine and starvation as a weapon of war, said that even if that line was never crossed, the effect of spending long periods in a state of extreme hunger could not be fully reversed. 'This is not about a formal famine declaration or a special number of trucks or meals. It's about Israel's attempt to starve Gaza indefinitely without the rapid mass death from starvation and disease we call famine,' he said. 'This experiment cannot last for ever, though the consequences of starvation can.' One of the most visible signs of social breakdown in Gaza is the regular looting of aid trucks entering the territory, and the near daily shootings of people trying to get limited supplies from distribution centres operated by the secretive US and Israeli backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. 'Starvation breaks social order, and transforms governance into just one issue, who can feed people?' said Nour Abuzaid, senior researcher at Forensic Architecture, an agency that investigates human rights violations. 'If you can feed people, you can rule them. Because life has been reduced to a single question: What are we going to eat today?' Forensic Architecture has documented the structural features that make GHF centres so deadly by design, including their location in areas where the Israeli military has ordered civilians to evacuate, and routes to reach them that take civilians close to Israeli military outposts. Israel can continue to restrict food and channel it through GHF sites even during a pause in fighting with conventional weapons. 'This is exactly what happened during the previous ceasefire, which was still in place when Israel cut aid on 2 March,' Abuzaid said. If it does, the location and architecture of GHF sites mean killings can be expected to continue, she said, citing repeated shootings of civilians who approached a 'buffer zone' established by Israeli forces. 'There were over 100 people who were killed during the ceasefire just because they were in proximity to the buffer zone,' Abuzaid said. 'So if the model based on (GHF) ration stations placed in or near the buffer zone continues [to be used] we should expect civilian casualties to continue.' Controls on food also mean Israel 'can actively destroy civil order even during a ceasefire', she added. De Waal said Israel's control of land and sea borders meant it had full oversight of how much food entered the territory, and UN data providing detailed information about malnutrition among Palestinians meant its leaders could not say starvation there was an unforeseen outcome. 'You can't starve anyone by accident, you can shoot someone by accident but … in inflicting starvation [you] have 60 or 80 days in which [you] can remedy the error,' he said. Forensic Architecture has concluded that Israel's restrictions on food entering Gaza are genocidal in two different ways, said its director, Eyal Weizman. 'Obviously, to intentionally starve people to death is genocidal, and starvation is also used in order to break society. Starvation is the means and starvation is the end.' 'If this system remains in place during any upcoming ceasefire, with control over every calorie and anyone entitled to it, Israel will continue to break Palestinian society,' Weizman said. 'The genocide might continue during a ceasefire.'
