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At least 13 Palestinians were killed and more than 150 injured after Israeli troops and American entrepreneurs opened fire on crowds while waiting for food near two aid distribution sites in Gaza, one east of Rafah and another near the Wadi Gaza bridge.
Sunday murders are the last of a series of attacks on civilians looking for food in the aid centers operated by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)An initiative led by the United States supported by Israel in areas under Israeli control.
More than 130 people have now been killed and more than 700 injured by Israeli troops while trying desperately to access meager plots of food for their hungry families from help sites since The GHF program started on May 27.
At least nine people are always missing.
In a statement, the Gaza Government Media Office condemned distribution sites as “human slaughterhouses”, accusing Israeli forces of having attracted desperate civilians to their death.
“These are war crimes and crimes against humanity,” said the press release, urging an independent international survey and an immediate suspension of the GHF delivery model.
The campaign supported by Israel and the United States has faced growing criticism of human and United Nations human rights organizations for violation of fundamental humanitarian standards and bypassing organizations that have decades of experience in the distribution of aid to the whole population of the besieged enclave.
‘It’s a trap for us, no help’
The last bloodshed would have started around 6 a.m., local time (03:00 GMT), while hundreds of Palestinians tracked down by famine gathered near the Aid point in the Al-Alam region of Rafah.
Witnesses said people had started to train queues from 4:30 am, desperately to get food before the site was exceeded.
“After about an hour and a half, hundreds moved to the site and the army opened fire,” said witness Abdallah Nour Al-Din.
The Israeli army later said that its troops had opened fire on individuals who “continued to advance in a way that endangered soldiers”, and said the area had been appointed an “active combat zone” at night. However, the survivors insist that the shooting took place after sunrise.
“It is a trap for us, not an aid,” said Adham Dahman, addressing the Nasser Hospital Associated Press in the south of Gaza with a bloody bandage on the chin. He said that a tank had pulled towards the crowd and that people found themselves hiding.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that 13 injured and a dead person when they arrived came to his clinic in the Al-Mawasi region in southern Khan Younis today.
MSF said that the wounded and the dead were “transported in donkey, bicycle or on foot” carts.
The wounded were all men aged 17 to 30. The victims said they were killed in the Shakoush region while going to a food distribution site in the Saudi village.
Images outside the hospital have shown that mourning families were crying on blood -soaked shrouds, while emergency workers rushed to treat the wounded.
Special Rapporteur of the United Nations in occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese called the operation of the GHF “humanitarian camouflage” and “an essential tactic of this genocide”.
In an article on social networks, Albanians blamed “the moral and political corruption of the world” for having allowed the destruction of Gaza.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said that the GHF delivery model turned out to be terribly inadequate. “Today’s deadly attacks in the South show that GHF is insufficient in the way it performs the delivery of aid,” he said.
“In the North, living conditions become even more difficult. People don’t just spend hours looking for water and food – they spend all day. At the end of it, many are completely exhausted and dehydrated, simply because they couldn’t find anything. ”
An anonymous official of the GHF said that there was no violence in or around its aid distribution sites, which all three foods delivered on Sunday, according to the Associated Press.
Hospitals outdated
Violence comes as the Gaza Ministry of Health reports that the total number of death deaths in Israel has reached 54,880, with more than 126,000 injured since October 7, 2023. Since Israel put an end to a cease-fire on March 18, 4,603 Palestinians were killed and more than 14,000 injured.
In the past 24 hours, Israeli strikes have killed at least 108 people and injured nearly 400 others across the besieged enclave, the ministry said.
Hospitals are overwhelmed and on collapsesaid the ministry.
The Rafah Red Cross Hospital said 12 mass emergencies in just two weeks, with more than 900 injured arriving during this period – 41 of them already died. Most of the people treated had tried to reach food distribution sites when they were slaughtered or injured.
A spokesperson for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital Deir El-Balah warned that fuel supply for Gaza health establishments could run out within 48 hours, leaving patients without care. “The hospital’s artificial renal service is out of service due to the occupation attacks,” he told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, the director of the Al-Shifa hospital told Al Jazeera that the lives of 300 patients with kidney failure was at stake. “We are faced with a real disaster in hospital if electricity is not provided,” he warned.
