Dozens of Palestinians were fatally shot on their way to an aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses said as Gaza truce talks faltered over withdrawal.
The 31 Palestinians shot dead were on their way to a distribution site run by the Israeli-backed American organisation Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) near Rafah in southern Gaza, reported AP.
The Red Cross’s field hospital saw its largest influx of dead in more than a year of operation after the shootings. AP reports that an overwhelming majority of the more than 100 people hurt had gunshot wounds.
Simultaneously, airstrikes in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah killed 13, including our children, officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said. Fifteen others were killed in Khan Younis in the south, according to Nasser Hospital.
No official number for the death toll has been confirmed. Reuters reported that 17 people were killed, citing medics, while Al Jazeera reported that 34 people were killed in the al-Shakoush area, in front of one of the GHF sites, when Israeli troops opened fire, wrote The Guardian.
Targeting Aid Sites
Gaza is reeling under starvation and the threat of famine as its above two million population is completely reliant on foreign aid.
According to AP, Israel’s military said it fired warning shots toward people who were behaving suspiciously to prevent them from approaching the aid site. It said it was not aware of any casualties. The GHF said no incident occurred near its sites.
Previously, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said that the UN had refused to collaborate with GHF, claiming the funding behind the organisation is an “opaque death trap” and is being used to further Israel’s agenda. Since June, over 500 Palestinians have been killed at the aid centres of GHF, according to Gaza's health ministry.
Eyewitness Mahmoud Makram told Reuters, “We were sitting there, and suddenly there was shooting towards us. For five minutes, we were trapped under fire. The shooting was targeted. It was not random. Some people were shot in the head, some in the torso, one guy next to me was shot directly in the heart.”
Witnesses, health officials and U.N. officials said hundreds have been killed by Israeli fire while heading toward GHF distribution points through military zones off limits to independent media
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 57,800 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The U.N. and other international organisations see their figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.
