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Israeli strikes kill 72 Palestinians, 29 waiting for aid trucks

Israeli strikes kill 72 Palestinians, 29 waiting for aid trucks

The National2 days ago

Another Israeli air strike on a home in the Zeitoun neighbourhood south of Gaza City killed eight people, leaving multiple other people wounded, according to medical sources.
Eight more people were killed, and others injured, including a woman and two children, in Israeli strikes on tents of displaced people in al-Mawasi camp in Gaza's south, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
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Meanwhile, a further 10 people, including a husband, wife and children from a single family, were killed in another Israeli air strike on the Maghazi camp in central Gaza, local reports have said.
The Israeli military told the Reuters news agency that it was looking into the reported deaths of people waiting for food aid.
The bodies of 20 people shot dead in northern Gaza by Israeli forces while waiting for aid trucks were left on the street for five days before Civil Defence paramedics from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs were given approval by Israeli officials to recover them.
Ahmed Ghaben told Al Jazeera about the death of a relative saying that his nephew wasn't a resistance fighter and that he simply went to get a bag of flour.
He said: 'My nephew went to bring his children a bag of flour, but he was brought back a lifeless body, as you can see, a martyr.
'He left 14 family members. He went [to get aid] due to hunger. He wasn't a resistance fighter. He went to get a bag of flour.'
Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said, 'It's very clear that Israeli forces are targeting civilians who only went to get bags of flour or boxes of food.
'Eyewitnesses say the soldiers used a variety of weapons, including drones and tanks. Snipers who have been deployed in nearby hills have also been gunning down the civilians.
'The Israeli military claims these hungry crowds are a security threat, but these claims have not been substantiated with clear evidence.'
Experts have warned that Israel's ongoing war on Gaza and restrictions on the entry of aid have put Gaza, which is home to some two million Palestinians, at risk of famine.
The UN's human rights chief, Volker Turk, condemned Israel's conduct around the aid centres this week.

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