79 Gazans killed waiting for food after Israeli troops open fire, medics say
The U.N. World Food Program said its 25-truck convoy was mobbed shortly after it passed through the Zikim border crossing from Israel into Gaza. 'Our convoy encountered massive crowds of hungry civilians which came under gunfire,' the agency said in a statement.
Israel's four-month blockade has left Gazans so bereft of basics like fuel that the bodies of victims from Sunday's mass shooting were often piled onto donkey carts, rather than ambulances, to reach al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 79 people were killed.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it had identified 'a gathering of thousands of Gazans' and fired 'warning shots' to 'remove an immediate threat' to troops. The military did not respond to further questions about the nature of the threat. It has issued similar statements after mass shootings of aid-seekers gathered near distribution sites run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation over the past two months.
'The IDF is aware of the claim regarding casualties in the area, and the details of the incident are still being examined,' the army said. It added that the Gaza Health Ministry's death toll did not 'align' with its own information, but provided no alternative figures.
Israel's blockade and military operations have reduced Gaza's 2 million-strong population to near starvation. World Central Kitchen, a U.S.-based nonprofit, said Sunday that its teams had run out of ingredients to cook warm meals. The health ministry said 18 people had died of a lack of food in 24 hours.
'The Israeli Authorities are starving civilians in #Gaza,' the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees said in a post Sunday on X. 'Among them are 1 million children.'
On the Al-Jazeera news network, the voice of correspondent Anas al-Sharif cracked as he pointed viewers to an elderly woman who appeared to have fainted from exhaustion as the cameras rolled. 'People are falling down now in the streets of Gaza from extreme hunger,' he said.
Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for Gaza's civil defense force, announced he was going on hunger strike, saying in a video statement that what is happening in Gaza 'is not merely a crisis.'
'It is a documented crime being committed against an entire people,' he said, addressing world leaders. 'You hold the power to stop this crime. History will not forgive those who watch in silence or those who remain complicit.'
Reached by phone at al-Shifa Hospital, an eyewitness to the shootings in northern Gaza said she had seen Israeli troops open fire as crowds ran to the aid trucks. Rebhi al-Masri, 30, said her brother-in-law was badly wounded from being shot in the neck and chest. Another relative was shot in the pelvis, and her brother had gone missing in the chaos. 'I have no idea where he is,' she said. 'Everybody started running.'
Zaher al-Wahidi, a spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, said another nine people were shot near two other aid distribution points or convoys in other areas of the enclave on Sunday.
As of July 13, the U.N. had recorded 875 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food in recent months, 674 of whom were killed around Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites. More than 200 others were killed while seeking food 'on the routes of aid convoys or near aid convoys' run by the U.N. or its humanitarian partners, Thameen al-Kheetan, a spokesman, told reporters in Geneva.
The U.N. said Friday that Israel had declined to renew the visa for a top U.N. official in Gaza who had criticized the military's shooting of Palestinian aid-seekers. Jonathan Whittall, who heads the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, had addressed the spiraling bloodshed in a news conference last month. 'What we are seeing is carnage,' he said. 'It's a death sentence for people just trying to survive.'
Israeli media reported Sunday that the Foreign Ministry had viewed the comments as 'biased.' A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to comment, and the Israeli mission to the U.N. in New York did not immediately respond.
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