Gaza rescuers say Israeli fire kills 36, six near aid centre
Israel has come under increasing international criticism over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
People carry relief supplies from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as displaced Palestinians return from an aid distribution centre in the central Gaza Strip on 8 June 2025. Picture: Eyad Baba / AFP
Gaza's civil defence agency said Saturday that Israeli forces had killed at least 36 Palestinians, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution centre.
The Israeli military told AFP that troops had fired 'warning shots' at individuals it said were 'advancing in a way that endangered the troops'.
The shooting deaths were the latest reported near the aid centre run by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in the southern district of Rafah, and came after it resumed distributions following a brief suspension in the wake of similar deaths earlier this week.
Meanwhile, an aid boat with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, was nearing Gaza in a bid to highlight the plight of Palestinians in the face of an Israeli blockade that has only been partially eased.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that at around 7:00 am (04:00 GMT), 'six people were killed and several others wounded by the forces of the Israeli occupation near the Al-Alam roundabout', where they had gathered to seek humanitarian aid from the distribution centre around a kilometre away.
AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls compiled by the civil defence agency or the circumstances of the deaths it reports.
ALSO READ: French grandmother files genocide complaint over Gaza killings
Samir Abu Hadid, who was there early Saturday, told AFP that thousands of people had gathered near the roundabout.
'As soon as some people tried to advance towards the aid centre, the Israeli occupation forces opened fire from armoured vehicles stationed near the centre, firing into the air and then at civilians,' Abu Hadid said.
The GHF said in a statement it had not distributed aid on Saturday because of 'direct threats' from Hamas.
Later Saturday, the Israeli army said an operation in Gaza City resulted in the killing of Asaad Abu Sharia, reportedly head of the Mujahideen Brigades.
The armed group is close to Hamas ally Islamic Jihad that Israel has also accused over deaths of hostages seized from Kibbutz Nir Oz near the border.
The army said he had taken part in the bloody attack on Nir Oz when Hamas launched its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
It said he was 'directly implicated' in the killings of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, a family who became a symbol of seized hostages for many in Israel.
Activist boat nears Gaza
The GHF, officially a private effort with opaque funding, began operations in late May as Israel partially eased a more than two-month-long aid blockade.
UN agencies and major aid groups have declined to work with it, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals.
On Saturday, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said that the overall toll for the Gaza war had reached 54,772, the majority civilians. The UN considers these figures reliable.
The war was sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
READ MORE: SA calls for urgent probe after 32 Palestinians killed while waiting for food
Israel has come under increasing international criticism over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where the UN warned in May that the entire population was at risk of famine.
The aid boat Madleen, organised by an international activist coalition, was sailing towards Gaza on Saturday, aiming to breach Israel's naval blockade and deliver aid to the territory, organisers said.
'We are now sailing off the Egyptian coast,' German human rights activist Yasemin Acar told AFP, saying they expected to reach Gaza by Monday.
The Palestinian territory was under Israeli naval blockade even before Hamas's October 2023 attack and the Israeli military has made clear it intends to enforce it.
A 2010 commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar attempt to breach Israel's naval blockade, left 10 civilians dead.
Evacuation order
The Israeli military has stepped up its operations in Gaza in recent weeks in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war.
On Saturday, the military issued evacuation orders for neighbourhoods in northern Gaza, saying they had been used for rocket attacks.
Also on Saturday, Hamas released a photograph of one of the remaining hostages, Matan Zangauker, appearing to be in poor health, with a warning that he would not survive.
His mother, Einav Zangauker, speaking at a protest in Tel Aviv, said 'I can no longer bear this nightmare. The angel of death, Netanyahu, continues to sacrifice the hostages'.
During the October 2023 attack, militants abducted 251 hostages, 55 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 the Israeli military says are dead.
NOW READ: Israel launches expanded Gaza offensive aimed at defeating Hamas
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In Britain, the Labour Party, which already received one of its lowest votes since the 1930s at the last election, is now in the polls behind the far-right Reform Party. In contrast, left-wing parties that have opposed austerity and NATO policies – La France Insoumise in France, Die Linke in Germany, and the Belgian Workers Party – have maintained or significantly increased their support. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ This disastrous collapse suffered by traditional left-wing parties that have supported war and austerity is extremely dangerous in the context of the rise of far-right parties across Europe. The reason for the collapsing support for such parties is obvious. Such policies attack the population's living standards. If parties claiming to be on the left continue to support austerity and rearmament, this trend of decline will just continue. The only way out of this situation for both Europe's population and the left is a complete policy reversal to one that prioritises social progress and economic development. Following the end of the Cold War, Europe should have focused on fostering economic cooperation and minimising military tensions and expenditures. This would have created a balanced economic area, equivalent to the US, with a strong potential for growth by combining Western Europe's manufacturing and services with Russia's energy and raw materials. What was possible was shown in Asia by ASEAN, which, in a continent that had suffered the worst conflicts of the Cold War, the Korean and Vietnam wars, became the world's most rapidly growing economic region through a concentration on economic development and the absence of military blocs. But, because an economically cooperating Europe could have been a successful competitor to the United States, US administrations pursued a path to prevent it – primarily through NATO's eastward expansion, which was carried out in direct violation of US promises to then-Soviet Premier Gorbachev that NATO would not advance 'an inch' eastward after Germany's reunification. Instead, in 1999, 2004, 2009, 2017, and 2020, new countries were added to NATO, and the door was deliberately left open to admitting Ukraine, known to be a red line for Russia due to Ukraine's proximity to Russia and its position as a historical route for invasion. Numerous US experts on Eastern Europe opposed this, led by George Kennan, the original architect of US Cold War strategy, who warned NATO expansion would be 'the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era'. But their warnings were ignored, with results culminating in the Ukraine war. Now NATO demands rearmament and cuts in social protection to finance this war. NATO forces simultaneously expanded outside Europe to participate in wars in the Global South, Afghanistan and Libya, and set up numerous organisations and initiatives to prepare for intervention in the Global South – such as the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, the Strategic Direction-South HUB, the Liaison Office in Addis Ababa – and has begun to expand into the Pacific – with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea attending every NATO summit since 2022. Such NATO expansion would involve Europe in even more conflicts and more calls for military expenditure. What is required is the complete opposite – priority to social progress and investment for economic growth. Both require more spending and are therefore directly contrary to a military build-up. Europe's need for social spending is obvious. But Europe's investment, the key to economic growth, has also collapsed. In the EU, investment, once depreciation (the wearing out of existing means of production) is taken into account, has halved from 7.4% of GDP in 2007 to only 3.5% on the latest data. International comparisons show this is enough only to generate 1% annual economic growth. Additionally, the US is now pressing for further policies harmful to Europe and its people. The US has already enormously damaged Europe by its conscious policy of cutting off Western Europe's source of cheap energy from Russia, achieved via the Ukraine war and the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline, which anyone who looks seriously at the matter knows was carried out by the US.
