Gaza: 85 Palestinians seeking aid allegedly killed by Israeli forces
The largest toll was reported from the northern part of the besieged Palestinian enclave, where at least 79 Palestinians were killed while trying to reach aid entering through the Zikim crossing with Israel, Zaher al-Waheidi, an official from Gaza's health ministry told the news agency.
The United Nations' World Food Programme said that 25 trucks with aid for 'starving communities' had entered through the crossing when it encountered massive crowds. 'As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire,' it said on X.
An unidentified United Nations official also told AP that Israeli forces opened fire towards crowds who tried to take food from the convoy.
The World Food Programme said that it was concerned and saddened by the killings.
'These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation,' it added. 'This terrible incident underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which humanitarian operations are forced to be conducted in Gaza.'
The killing also came despite assurances from Israeli authorities that humanitarian operational conditions would improve, including that armed forces will not be present nor engage at any stage along humanitarian convoy routes, the organisation said.
On its part, the Israeli military said its soldiers shot at a gathering of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza who posed a threat and added that it was aware of some casualties, AP reported.
However, it claimed that the toll reported by the officials in Gaza was far higher than what its initial investigation found. The military also accused Palestinian militant group Hamas of creating chaos.
Apart from northern Gaza, Al-Waheidi also said that Israeli gunfire killed another six Palestinians in the Shakoush area, the news agency reported. This was hundreds of meters north of a hub of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a United States and Israel-backed group, in Rafah, he added.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation claimed that it was not aware of any such incident near its site.
Additionally, seven Palestinians, including a five-year-old boy, were killed while sheltering in tents in Khan Younis, AP quoted the Kuwait Specialized Field Hospital as saying.
Israel's military offensive in Gaza began in October 2023 after Hamas killed 1,200 persons during its incursion into southern Israel and took hostages. Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on Gaza since then, leaving more than 57,000 persons dead.
Tel Aviv has also enforced a severe blockade on humanitarian aid, which United Nations officials say has brought the population to the verge of famine.
On Sunday, the World Food Programme reiterated that Gaza's hunger crisis had reached 'new levels of desperation', adding that residents of the enclave were dying due to a lack of humanitarian assistance.
It added that malnutrition was surging, with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment.
'Nearly one person in three is not eating for days,' the organisation said. 'Only a massive scale-up in food aid distributions can stabilise this spiralling situation, calm anxieties and rebuild the trust within communities that more food is coming.'
The developments also come amid evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military for parts of central Gaza, AP reported. This is one of the few areas where it has rarely operated with ground troops and where many international organisations trying to distribute aid are located.
Meanwhile, Israel and Hamas have been holding ceasefire talks in Qatar. Earlier, efforts to reinstate a brief ceasefire that took effect in January had stalled due to major disagreements between Hamas and Israel.
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