An Israeli fire has killed at least a dozen people in the past 24 hours while looking for food aid in Gaza, the Associated Press reported.
The report occurs in the midst of an in -depth famine crisis in Gaza and less than a week after the murder of more than 85 Palestinians by Israeli forces at a food aid control point.
Nowsweek Contacted Israeli Defense Forces (FDI) to comment by e-mail and WhatsApp on Saturday.
Why it matters
Humanitarian aid groups have warned for months that Gaza approaches famine. Israel, which controls the entrance to aid in the enclave, has severely limited access-constraints on the rights even more since the collapse of the last cease-fire in March. From March to mid-May, no help was allowed to enter Gaza.
In addition to the limited supplies, the distribution of aid has become fatal, human rights defense groups criticizing the approach of the Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in the United States and Israeli, which forced Palestinians to fenced labyrinths and aid seekers exposed to Israeli fires. THE The United Nations Considers that Israel has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food since May.
The reports and images of hungry Gazans occur on Thursday as the Trump administration reduced the cease-fire negotiations, indicating Thursday, declaring Hamas “shows a lack of desire” to reach a truce with Israel.
Israel has repeatedly said that help deliveries should be delivered in a “safe setting” that does not give Hamas supplies, and notes that GHF provides food to Gaza. Israel used aid restrictions as a pressure tactical to bring Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, to negotiate the release of hostages that were taken in its October 7, 2023 against Israel.
What to know
Friday at night and Saturday, Israeli air strikes and gunshots killed at least 42 people, the AP reported. Dozens have been shot dead while waiting for help trucks near the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza. The Israeli army said that it had shot a warning to keep a crowd away “in response to an immediate threat” and that it was not aware of any victim.
On July 20, Israel shot crowds of food seekers in the same region, killing 85.
A witness, Sherif Abu Aisha, said on Saturday that people had started to run when they saw a light that they supposed was an aid truck, but when they approached, they discovered that it was an Israeli reservoir. The tank then started to shoot people, killing some.
Recent reports and images of children and adults emaciated in Gaza occurred while hunger deaths continue to increase. The Gaza Ministry of Health, led by Hamas, said that at least 127 people, including 85 children, died from famine. The ministry reported that six died in the past 24 hours, including a 5 -month -old baby.
“Severe acute malnutrition is increasing and almost a third of families are missing meals for days at the same time,” warned the United Nations World Food Program. One in five children in Gaza City is malnourished, Philippe Lazzarini, general commissioner of the Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), noted.
Human rights organizations, aid and medicine warn that malnutrition weakens the immune system, increasing the risk of illness and potentially driving death, especially in children and vulnerable populations.
Israel has repeatedly rejected allegations of forced famine in Gaza. In May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu The people refused are hungry in Gaza, saying that Israel takes “thousands of prisoners” from Gaza and photography, and that you “do not see, not, emaciated”.
The Palestinians carry bags of flour discharged from a convoy of humanitarian aid which reached Gaza City from the north of the Gaza Strip on July 26.
AP photo / Jehad Alshrafi
What people say
Edouard Beigbeder, regional director of UNICEF for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement on Thursday: “Severe malnutrition is spreading among children faster than helping cannot reach them, and the world watches it occur … Children must be protected – not killed, and not hungry.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in an X, formerly Twitter, published on Friday: “The special envoy in the Middle East Steve Witkoff has understood. Hamas is the obstacle to a hostage release agreement. With our American allies, we are now considering alternative options to bring our hostages home, end the Hamas terrorist rule and ensure lasting peace for Israel and our region.”
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner, wrote in a Friday x Post: “One in five children is malnourished in Gaza City as cases increase every day. When children’s malnutrition increases, adaptation mechanisms fail, access to food and care disappears, famine is silently unfolding.
Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, told Vox in an article on Friday: “When you have a population that is stressed, whose health has deteriorated as much, or is [already] In such an advanced state of food deprivation and malnutrition in the population, so things can become bad very quickly, because there is nothing to hinder famine … In most famines, we see mortality coming from a mixture of outright famine and opportunistic infections. “”
He added: “Famines have a momentum, and the more they are allowed to deepen, the more difficult they are to reverse.”
The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres wrote in a post Friday: “Gaza is more than a humanitarian crisis-it is a moral crisis that calls into question global conscience. We will continue to express themselves. But words do not feed hungry children. The @Uun is ready to make the most of a cease-fire to considerably increase humanitarian operations.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent vermont, wrote in a Friday x post: “The extermination by the government of Netanyahu de Gaza is intensifying. Malnutrition is endemic, children die of hunger, people are slaughtered while waiting for meager food rations – and American weapons allow it to happen. Trump and Congress must act now. Stop the massacre. Feed people. “”
AP, AFP, BBC and Reuters all said in a joint statement this week: “We are desperately concerned about our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families. For many months, these independent journalists are the eyes and ears of the world on the ground in Gaza. They are now confronted with the same disastrous circumstances as those they cover.
What happens next?
France and Saudi Arabia are expected to co -reside a United Nations Conference previously postponed on the issue of a Palestinian State, humanitarian aid and a hostage outing next week.
International pressure for a ceasefire and widened humanitarian aid to Gaza continues to rise. On Saturday, the soldiers of Israel announced that parachutists of aid, whose flour and canned food, will start in Gaza. The humanitarian corridors for the UN convoys will also be established, although it has not been specified when and where.