At least 15 Palestinians shot dead after new flashpoint near Gaza aid distribution centre

At least 15 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire near an aid centre in central Gaza, doctors said last night.
Medics at Al-Awda and Al-Aqsa hospitals said the victims were approaching the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) yesterday when they were shot.
The Israeli army said soldiers opened fire to 'neutralise the threat' posed when a man continued to move towards troops and ignored their warning shots.
Last week, the army warned Palestinians not to approach roads to GHF sites between 6pm and 6am, describing the routes as closed military zones.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May after Israel partially lifted a near three-month blockade.
But aid remains in short supply, and has made the humanitarian situation in Gaza desperate.
Scores of Palestinians have been killed in near daily shootings as they try to get food. The UN says the Israel-backed GHF violates humanitarian impartiality and is inadequate and dangerous.
Gaza's health ministry said at least 274 people have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded near aid distribution sites since the GHF began operations.
Hamas, which denies claims that it steals aid, said Israel was using 'hunger as a weapon of war and turning aid distribution sites into traps of mass deaths'.
In another incident yesterday, health officials at Shifa Hospital in Gaza said Israeli fire killed at least 12 Palestinians gathering to wait for aid trucks along the coastal road north of the strip.
The Israeli military ordered residents of Khan Younis and the nearby towns of Abassan and Bani Suhaila in the southern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and go to a so-called humanitarian zone, saying it was tackling 'terror organisations' in the area.
Neither Israel nor Hamas seems willing to back down on core demands to restore a ceasefire in Gaza, blaming each other for the failure to reach a deal.

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The Independent

19 hours ago

• The Independent

A deadly race for food: Palestinians in Gaza risk harrowing journey day after day

Each day, Palestinians in Gaza run a deadly gantlet in hopes of getting food. Israeli troops open barrages of gunfire toward crowds crossing military zones to get to the aid, they say, and knife-wielding thieves wait to ambush those who succeed. Palestinians say lawlessness is growing as they are forced into a competition to feed their families. A lucky few manage to secure some packets of lentils, a jar of Nutella or a bag of flour. Many return empty-handed and must attempt the ordeal again the next day. 'This isn't aid. It's humiliation. It's death,' said Jamil Atili, his face shining with sweat as he made his way back last week from a food center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed private contractor. He had suffered a knife cut across his cheek amid the scramble for food and said a contractor guard pepper-sprayed him in the face. Still, he emerged with nothing for his 13 family members. 'I have nothing to feed my children,' he said, nearly crying. 'My heart is broken.' Israel began allowing food into Gaza this past month after cutting it off completely for 10 weeks, though United Nations officials say it is not enough to stave off starvation. Most of the supplies go to GHF, which operates four food distribution points inside Israeli military zones. A trickle of aid goes to the U.N. and humanitarian groups. Both systems are mired in chaos. Daily gunfire by Israeli troops toward crowds on the roads heading to the GHF centers has killed several hundred people and wounded hundreds more in past weeks, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. At the same time, in past weeks, hungry crowds overwhelm most of the U.N.'s truck convoys and strip away the supplies. Israeli troops have opened fire to disperse crowds waiting for trucks near military zones, witnesses say — and on Tuesday, more than 50 people were killed, according to the ministry. The Israeli military says it is investigating. 'I don't see how it can get any worse, because it is already apocalyptic. But somehow it does get worse,' said Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian affairs office. Israel and GHF downplay the violence Israel says it has only fired warning shots at suspects who approached its forces along the roads to the GHF food centers. Palestinian witnesses say the troops fire to prevent crowds from moving past a certain point before the centers open or because people leave the road designated by the military. They describe heavy barrages from tanks, snipers, drones and even guns mounted on cranes. Asked how its soldiers control movement, the military told The Associated Press its 'operational conduct ... is accompanied by systematic learning processes.' It said it was looking into safety measures like fences and road signs. GHF says no shootings have taken place in or near its hubs. A spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity under GHF rules, said incidents take place before sites open involving aid-seekers who move 'during prohibited times ... or trying to take a short cut.' They said GHF is trying to improve safety, in part by changing opening times to daylight hours. Israel intends for GHF to replace the U.N.-led aid network in Gaza, contending that Hamas diverts large amounts of aid from it. The U.N. denies the claim. Ducking under fire Thousands of people must walk miles to reach the GHF centers, three of which are in the far south outside the city of Rafah. Palestinians said the danger begins when the crowds enter the Israeli military zone encompassing Rafah. Mohammed Saqer, a father of three who risked the trip multiple times, said that when he went last week, tanks were firing over the heads of the crowds as drone announcements told everyone to move back. It's 'like it was 'Squid Game,'' Saqer said, referring to the dystopian thriller TV series in which contestants risk their lives to win a prize. Just raising your head might mean death, he said. He and others crawled forward, then left the main road. A shot rang out nearby and they ducked, he said. They found a young man on the ground, shot in the back. The others assumed he was dead, but Saqer felt his chest — it was still warm, and he found a pulse. They carried him to a point where a car could pick him up. Saqer said he stood for a moment, traumatized by the scene. Then people shouted that the site had opened. The mad dash Everyone broke into a crazed run, he said. He saw several people wounded on the ground. One man, bleeding from his abdomen, reached out his hand, pleading for help. No one stopped. 'Everyone is just running to get to the aid, to get there first,' Saqer said. Omar al-Hobi described the same scene the four times he went last week. Twice, he returned empty-handed; once, he managed to grab a pack of lentils. On the fourth day, he was determined to secure flour for his three children and pregnant wife. He said he and others inched their way forward under tank fire. He saw several people shot in the legs. One man fell bleeding to the ground, apparently dead, he said. Horrified, al-Hobi froze, unable to move, 'but I remembered I have to feed my children.' He took cover in a greenhouse, then heard the announcement that the center was open and began to run. Avoiding thieves At the center, food boxes are stacked on the ground in an area surrounded by fences and earthen berms. Thousands rush in to grab what they can in a frantic melee. You have to move fast, Saqer said. Once supplies run out, some of those who came too late rob those leaving. He swiftly tore open a box and loaded the contents into a sack — juice, chickpeas, lentils, cheese, beans, flour and cooking oil. Then he took off running. There's only one route in and out of the center. But, knowing thieves waited outside, Saqer clambered over a berm, running the risk of being fired on by Israeli troops. 'It all depends on the soldiers' mood. If they are in a bad mood … they will shoot at me. If not, they will let me be,' he said. Heba Jouda said she saw a group of men beat up a boy of 12 or 13 years old and take his food as she left one of the Rafah centers. Another time, she said, thieves attacked an older man, who hugged his sack, weeping that his children had no food. They sliced his arm with a knife and ran off with the sack. The finish line Al-Hobi said he was trampled in the scramble for boxes. He managed to grab a bag of rice, a packet of macaroni. He snagged flour — but much of it was ruined in the chaos. At his family tent outside Khan Younis, his wife, Anwaar Saleh, said she will ration it all to make it last a week or so. 'We hope he doesn't have to go back. His life is the most important thing,' she said. Al-Hobi remains shaken — both by his brushes with death and the callousness that the race for food has instilled in everyone. 'No one will show you mercy these days. Everybody fends for themselves.' ___ El Deeb reported from Beirut, Keath from Cairo. AP correspondent Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.

NBC News

a day ago

• NBC News

Wounded Gaza children find respite from war at Ohio summer camp

BUTLER, Ohio — Their bodies are maimed or burned. Their childhoods have been shattered. And their futures are filled with uncertainty as war rages in Gaza. But for one week, three dozen wounded Palestinian children and members of their families have found a respite from the fighting at a summer camp in Mohican State Park, just an hour north of Columbus. Thanks to HEAL Palestine, a nonprofit group that aids the youngest victims of the Gaza war, children like 7-year-old Qamar Alkordi, who uses two-hand crutches to walk, have been able to play in a safe place with other wounded children and feel less alone. "There's other kids, they have the prosthetic, they are walking, and this is, like, it makes me happy to see this," her mother, Huda Alkordi, said about the sleepaway camp, where Qamar played in an inflatable pool and sprayed other kids with water. "And I really hope that Qamar, one day, she gonna walk, inshallah [God willing]." HEAL runs field hospitals and food kitchens in Gaza and runs educational programs for children who haven't been inside a school since Israel Defense Forces invaded the crowded Palestinian territory after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage. "A lot of them are facing a future of near illiteracy," said a HEAL co-founder, Dr. Zeena Salman, referring to how schools have largely ceased functioning in the shattered enclave. In the 19-plus months since Israel began bombing Gaza and with most of its 2 million residents forced from their homes, Gaza has become an especially dangerous place for children. About 1,309 children have been killed and 3,738 have been injured since the end of the ceasefire in March, UNICEF said in a report last month. Overall, more than 55,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the conflict began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Realizing that they were confronted with "the largest population of child amputees in modern history," Salman said, she and her cohorts came up with the idea of a summer camp for the dozens of children they have been able to bring to the United States for specialized care. "Some of them have lost four limbs, and we as individuals are not able to stop this from happening, but at HEAL Palestine, we can start to give them back a little bit of what was taken from them," Salman said. That means a summer camp with ramps so kids who rely on wheelchairs and walkers and prosthetics can get around and play. "We brought them to a camp that's very accessible, where they can play wheelchair basketball or can do art with, like, adapted paintbrushes, you know, for kids who don't have fingers," Salman said. "We want every child to feel whole." When camp is over, many of the children are sent back to Egypt, where they are living temporarily because Gaza's borders are closed, HEAL officials said. Qamar was badly injured when her home was bombed two months after the war began. It was Dec. 4, 2023, Qamar's birthday. But with the fighting getting closer and closer to their home, Huda Alkordi purposely did not make plans to celebrate. "I decided not to tell her that it's her birthday, just in case if something bad happened," she said. And something bad did happen. Both of Qamar's siblings were hurt in the attack, as were several of her cousins. But Qamar was the most badly wounded, and after a week in the hospital she developed an infection that the doctors were unable to treat. "They decided to amputate her leg because of infection that happened with her leg," her mother said. Watching her daughter play, Huda said she knows this is only a temporary break from the chaos in Gaza. But she said her daughter, even without one leg, is luckier than many other injured children still back in Gaza. "I had the chance to take my daughter out and give her that treatment," she said. "All of them, they deserve to get treatment." At age 18, Sara Bsaiso is one of the oldest campers. She, too, was injured in the early days of the war when her grandmother's home was hit by a missile in an airstrike that killed one of her brothers, mortally wounded another and set her ablaze. The brother who initially survived died days later while waiting for help. Bsaiso sustained third-degree burns over much of her body and went weeks with only limited medical care before she was able to be medically evacuated to the United States. She is staying in New Jersey. Being at the camp and being able to interact with so many other young people who went through similar ordeals has been healing, she said. "I'm so grateful to be here, and I'm so happy to see you bring in all of these amazing children together," she said. Bsaiso said that as she was growing up in Gaza, she and her family often went to the beach and swam in the Mediterranean Sea. Since she has been at the camp, she has had the chance to do something she hadn't done since she was injured. "I haven't been able to swim until now," she said. Bsaiso said she was living in what she called a "cozy house" in the Rimal section of Gaza City with her parents, four brothers and three sisters when the war started. "I was in law last year of school, and I remember when I'm preparing to go to school, and then suddenly everything went crazy," she said. "We didn't understand. We didn't understand. We thought first probably it's raining, but it wasn't." It was the start of the Israeli offensive. Bsaiso, who has undergone multiple operations and skin grafts, said she thinks about her family back in Gaza every day. "For sure, I'm hoping for the ceasefires," she said. "And there's my dad and two brothers and two sisters' sons stuck in Gaza. And yeah, I hope the ceasefires happen and the borders open and everything will be good." In the meantime, she said, she is using her time at summer camp to mend, both outside and in.

The Guardian

2 days ago

• The Guardian

Israel, we're begging you: please let aid organisations do our jobs in Gaza

Abed Al Rahman, just a boy, carried the weight of his family's hunger as he stepped into the streets of Gaza in search of bread. He had his father's money, but when he saw the tide of people pushing towards a food distribution site in Rafah, hunger pulled him into their flow. Almost immediately, the site descended into chaos. Gunfire. Drones. Then in a flash, shrapnel from a tank shell ripped through his little body. When I met him at a hospital in Khan Younis – where painkillers, like food, are scarce – the 13-year-old was in agony. 'I have shrapnel inside my body that they couldn't remove,' he told me. 'I am in real pain; since 6am I have been asking for a painkiller.' As he recounted the chaos, his father's composure shattered, and tears rolled down his face. Was he going to lose his son simply because Abed Al Rahman wanted his family to eat? Abed Al Rahman had been trying to get food from a new private and militarised distribution site in Gaza. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is funnelling aid through a handful of southern sites guarded by private contractors and Israeli soldiers. With so few distribution points, those who can make the trek are forced to travel long, dangerous distances – risking their lives for grossly inadequate amounts of supplies. In the first week of the GHF's operation, there were five mass-casualty events in the vicinity of distribution sites as desperate civilians were met by gun and tank fire. Children have been killed. The UN's aid chief, Tom Fletcher, said the sites made 'starvation a bargaining chip' and were 'a fig leaf for further violence and displacement'. A system that bypasses the UN has, in fact, bypassed humanity. Indeed, politicised aid distribution is unsafe for everyone involved – last week, the GHF said eight of its local team members and volunteers had been killed. And while it's critical that there is a focus on this lethal lack of aid for Palestinians, the daily killing and maiming of children has become an afterthought. This is my fifth mission to Gaza since the horrors of 7 October, and in all that time almost nothing has been done to stop the world's deadliest conflict for children in recent memory. There have been more than 50,000 children reported killed or injured in 20 months. Fifty thousand. On the same morning I met Abed Al Rahman, I spoke with 24-year-old Sheima, also hospitalised. She, too, went to one of the GHF distribution sites. Different day, same story: her family was denied humanitarian aid for months. Consumed by hunger, her father too sick to travel, Sheima reached a site. Again, gunfire. Boxes of food thrown to the dirt. 'I saw dead bodies on the ground,' she told me. 'People stepping over them, just trying to get some food.' In the mayhem, Sheima became entangled in wire – her leg and arm torn open as she tried to flee. She didn't get any food. 'Even though I almost died, I would go again,' she said. 'I'm the eldest in my family – we need food to survive. I wish to die with a full stomach, not from starvation.' These raw testimonials reinforce two critical questions. First, when UN and international non-governmental organisations warehouses outside Gaza are jam-packed with lifesaving supplies, why is there still a lethal lack of humanitarian aid in Gaza? And second, will these few sites run by private contractors solve the crisis? On the first point, after a total blockade on all supplies going into Gaza from early March until 19 May, Unicef and the World Food Programme are now permitted to bring in limited quantities of only a few selected items. Meanwhile, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned last month that all 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are facing life-threatening food insecurity. Lack of access to clean water has been pushed to lethal levels. Amid incessant bombardments, drastic aid restrictions and mass displacement of the civilian population, the risk of famine is not just possible, but increasingly likely for families in Gaza. From the end of the ceasefire to May this year, malnutrition admissions among children aged under five surged by nearly 150%, with a steep rise in severe cases. This isn't just a trend – it's an urgent warning. And to the second question, can the GHF prevent famine? The reality is, far too little aid is being distributed from far too few distribution points, all amid concerns that families travelling from northern Gaza to reach sites in the south will not be allowed to return. This is not how you avert famine. Before the collapse of the most recent ceasefire, the UN operated a highly effective aid delivery system in Gaza. And during the ceasefire, we were delivering assistance from more than 400 distribution points across the territory. Access to food, safe water, medicines and shelter skyrocketed. Unicef even went door-to-door to reach malnourished children. Unicef continues to call for a ceasefire, protection of children, the release of hostages and full aid access. We know what it takes to deliver for children in emergencies – it is the same in every crisis and every conflict since the second world war. Children need nutritious food at scale, safety, clean water and dignity. Not security operators. Not indiscriminate fire. Not chaos. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. We delivered aid at scale during the ceasefire, and we can do it again. We just need to be allowed to do our jobs. Abed Al Rahman died of his injuries on 17 June 2025, after this article was written. James Elder is Unicef's global spokesperson