At least 73 people were killed and around 150 people injured by Israeli gunfire in Gaza while seeking aid on Sunday, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Some 67 people were killed in northern Gaza, the ministry said, while six others were killed in Khan Younis in the south of the Strip. It is unclear whether the 67 people reported killed in northern Gaza were all killed in the same place or in multiple incidents. It marks one of the highest reported death tolls among recent, repeated cases in which aid seekers have been killed.
The Israel Defense Forces said that troops had “fired warning shots in order to remove an immediate threat posed to them” after “a gathering of thousands of Gazans was identified in the northern Gaza Strip.”
“The IDF is aware of the claim regarding casualties in the area, and the details of the incident are still being examined,” the Israeli military said, without disclosing any casualty figures.
The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) said a 25-truck convoy carrying vital food assistance crossed the Zikim border on Sunday morning aiming to reach communities in northern Gaza.
“Shortly after passing the final checkpoint beyond the Zikim crossing point into Gaza, the convoy encountered large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies,” the WFP wrote on X. “As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire.”
Shooting near humanitarian missions, convoys and food distributions “must stop immediately,” the WFP added, and said the latest incident “underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which humanitarian operations are forced to be conducted in Gaza.”
The Israeli military on Sunday also issued a warning to residents in a number of areas in northern Gaza, including the cities of Beit Lahia, Jabalya and Beit Hanoun.
“These areas are active combat zones and extremely dangerous,” the IDF’s Arabic language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said Sunday. “The Israel Defense Forces are operating in these areas with very intense force. For your safety, movement to these areas is strictly prohibited. Those who heard have been warned.”
According to Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, people were shot at by the Israeli army on Sunday morning while attempting to get aid northwest of Gaza City, which is in the north of the enclave.
“Al-Shifa Medical Complex is in a catastrophic state due to the overwhelming number of martyrs, injuries and starving civilians,” Abu Salmiya told CNN in a statement.
“There have been a large number of deaths and injuries among those seeking aid, and ambulances and civilian vehicles have not stopped arriving, transporting the wounded and the dead from the northwestern areas of Gaza,” he continued.
“A significant number of civilians, and even medical staff, are arriving in a state of fainting or collapse due to severe malnutrition,” he said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that its Al-Saraya Field Hospital in Gaza City received 120 injured people, some of them in critical condition, on Sunday. It said it also received two dead bodies.
Source:CNN/Ejiofor Ezeifeoma