Israeli forces killed 800 Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza, UN says
Ten Palestinians were killed Friday while waiting for rations in Gaza, adding to nearly 800 similar deaths in the last six weeks, according to the UN.
The UN rights office said on Friday it had recorded at least 798 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near convoys run by other relief groups.
"(From May 27) up until the seventh of July, we've recorded 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys," UN rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a media briefing in Geneva.
Gaza's more than two million residents facing a dire humanitarian crisis of hunger and disease amid the grinding conflict.
Israel began easing a more than two-month total blockade of aid in late May. Since then, a new US- and Israel-backed organization called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has effectively sidelined the territory's vast UN-led aid delivery network.
There are frequent reports of Israeli forces firing on people seeking aid, with Gaza's civil defense agency saying 10 Palestinians were killed Friday while waiting at a distribution point near the southern city of Rafah.
The UN, which refuses to cooperate with GHF over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives, said Friday that 798 people have been killed seeking aid between late May and July 7, including 615 "in the vicinity of the GHF sites".
"Where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food and medicine, and where... they have a choice between being shot or being fed, this is unacceptable," UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
Israel's military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday's deaths, but has previously accused Hamas fighters of firing at civilians in the vicinity of aid centers.
GHF called the UN report "false and misleading", claiming that "most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys".
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza's civil defense agency, told AFP that Israeli forces killed 45 people overall in the territory on Friday. Israel’s onslaught on Gaza has killed more than 57,800 Palestinians, most of them civilians, since October 2023.