Latest news with #aid
BBC News
4 hours ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Israeli military kills 23 Palestinians near aid site in Gaza, witnesses and medics say
Israeli forces have killed 23 Palestinians after opening fire on crowds who had gathered near an aid distribution site, witnesses and medics and drones fired at thousands of people near an aid distribution centre in central Gaza run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the witnesses and medics said.A spokesperson for al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat confirmed that 23 bodies and more than 100 wounded people had been brought there. Images from the hospital showed bodies on the was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 400 Palestinians have been killed in similar incidents since late May. That is when the GHF took over most aid distribution in Gaza in an attempt by Israel to bypass the UN as the main supplier of move followed a complete three-month Israeli blockade during which no food entered the territory, putting the entire population at critical risk of famine according to a UN-backed almost all incidents, witnesses have said that Israeli troops opened fire, although there have also been reports of local armed gunmen shooting at people. On Thursday, at least 12 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces while waiting for aid, according to rescuers and medics. The GHF denied there were any incidents near its site. The Israeli military told Reuters that "suspects" had attempted to approach forces in the area of Netzarim, and that soldiers had fired warning shots. It said it was unaware of any Tuesday witnesses said Israeli forces opened fire and shelled an area near a junction to the east of Khan Younis, where thousands of Palestinians had been gathering in the hope of getting flour from a World Food Programme (WFP) site, which also includes a community kitchen nearby. More than 50 people were killed. The Israeli military said "a gathering" had been identified "in proximity to IDF troops operating in the area" and the incident was under a separate Israeli attack on Friday, a medic with the Palestinian Red Crescent told the BBC that 11 Palestinians were killed and others injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a home in the al-Ma'sar area west of Deir al-Balah in central said Israeli warplanes struck a two-storey house belonging to the Ayash civil defence officials say Israel has carried out a wave of deadly air strikes on Gaza in recent days, following a brief lull in air operations that coincided with the escalation between Israel and reported on Thursday that at least 77 Palestinians had been killed in such strikes, which heavily targeted the Shati area in western Gaza City. Eyewitnesses reported that Israeli drones fired three missiles at tents and a gathering of civilians near the camp's central market, killing 23 people, including children. Videos circulated on social media showed bodies lying on the ground, among them two children, as people attempted to extinguish sources speculated that the renewed strikes may be linked to the targeting of Hamas security elements who have recently re-emerged across parts of Gaza, attempting to reassert control amid a breakdown in law and order. These movements appear to have been timed with the temporary easing of Israeli aerial surveillance due to the simultaneous military focus on Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken least 55,706 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including more than 15,000 children, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
South China Morning Post
6 hours ago
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Gaza's ‘death race': hundreds killed in desperate dash for food aid
Like Squid Game. That is how residents describe it, invoking the dystopian TV show when recounting the lethal gauntlet that getting aid in famine-haunted Gaza has become. 'It's a death race. The faster, the stronger, the luckier - they're the ones who might survive, might reach the food,' said 30-year-old Mohammed al-Shaqra. 'It feels like we're animals, racing for a box of supplies as if our lives depend on it. And they do.' Ever since Israel sidelined the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations late last month and tasked assistance operations to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an opaque US and Israeli-backed private contractor registered in Delaware, killing has been the near-daily companion of aid deliveries. Members of a private US security company, contracted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, direct displaced Palestinians to receive relief supplies. Photo: AFP On Thursday, health authorities in Gaza said 12 people were killed near a GHF distribution centre, a relatively low toll in a week that saw 59 killed in similar circumstances on Tuesday. Since the foundation began its work on May 26, more than 400 people have been killed and more than 3,000 wounded.
LBCI
18 hours ago
- Politics
- LBCI
Gaza rescuers say 72 killed by Israel fire
Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli fire killed at least 72 people in the Palestinian territory on Thursday, including 21 who had gathered to receive aid in central and southern Gaza. Updating an earlier figure, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP the death toll had risen to 72 "due to the ongoing Israeli bombardment on the Gaza Strip since dawn today -- 21 of them were waiting for aid". The Israeli army told AFP that troops had fired "warning shots" at "suspects" approaching them in the Netzarim area, where the civil defense agency said 15 people were killed waiting for aid but that it was "not aware of any injured individuals." AFP
RNZ News
19 hours ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
China could be beneficiary of Peters' move on Cooks
The decision by New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, to suspend payment of aid to the Cook Islands, could backfire on the government.
The Guardian
20 hours ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Dozens more people killed or injured seeking desperately needed aid in Gaza
Dozens more Palestinians were killed or injured in Gaza as they sought desperately needed aid on Thursday, with reports that Israeli forces close to one distribution point had opened fire in the third such incident in as many days. More than a hundred people have been reported killed since Monday while trying either to reach aid points or waiting to stop and offload the limited number of UN and commercial trucks entering the devastated territory. There have been about 20 such incidents in the last four weeks. Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli fire had killed 15 people and wounded 60 between the town of Nuseirat and in the centre of Gaza early on Thursday morning after thousands had gathered in the hope of receiving rations. Such reports are difficult to confirm independently, but interviews conducted by the Guardian with witnesses appear to corroborate many of the details. Abdullah Ahmed, 31, said he had been around a kilometre from an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US and Israeli-backed private organisation, when there had been a series of explosions and shootings at around 2am local time. 'I heard that the GHF site would open in the morning and set out early from my home [in the nearby town of al-Bureij] to get food. 'Because there are always many people, we try to be the first to increase our chances of getting aid. When I was heading to the aid distribution point, there was heavy but intermittent gunfire from tanks, artillery and quadcopters,' he said. 'As we got closer to the site, gunfire resumed and shells were launched. A shell fell just a few metres away from me, and shrapnel hit me in my chest, neck and leg.' Abdel Fattah Younis, 20, from Nuseirat said the shooting or shelling occurred when crowds had surged towards the GHF site in the belief that it had opened to distribute aid. 'We moved toward it, and we became fully exposed … Suddenly, intense gunfire was directed at us … I was shot once in the chest, and another bullet lodged in my lower back,' he said. Dr Nasser Abu Samra, the head of the emergency reception department at al-Awda hospital, said it had received nine dead and 120 injured from the incident. The Israeli army told Agence France-Presse that troops had fired 'warning shots' at 'suspects' approaching them in the Netzarim area, but that it was 'not aware of any injured individuals'. The reported incident came on a particularly bloody day in Gaza, with about 60 people also reported killed in a wave of airstrikes. Food has become extremely scarce in Gaza since Israel's imposition of a tight blockade on all supplies throughout March and April, leaving many of the territory's inhabitants facing a 'critical risk of famine'. Since the blockade was partially lifted last month, the UN has tried to bring in aid but has faced major obstacles, including rubble-choked roads, Israeli military restrictions, continuing airstrikes and growing anarchy. Aid officials said an average of 23 UN trucks a day had entered Gaza through the main checkpoint of Kerem Shalom in recent days, but most have been 'self-distributed' by hungry Palestinians who stopped them, or looted by organised gangs. The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday that it has been able to dispatch just 9,000 metric tonnes of food aid into Gaza over the last four weeks, 'a tiny fraction of what a population of 2.1 million hungry people needs'. Israel hopes the GHF will replace the previous comprehensive system of aid distribution run by the UN, which Israeli officials claim allowed Hamas to steal and sell supplies. UN agencies and major aid groups, which have delivered humanitarian aid across Gaza since the start of 20-month-long war, have rejected the new system, saying it is impractical, inadequate and unethical. They deny there is widespread theft of aid by Hamas. GHF said in an email on Wednesday that it had provided more than 30 million meals 'safely and without incident' since it began operating last month. Israel launched its campaign intended to destroy Hamas after the group's 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage. Hamas still holds 53 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Gaza's health ministry said on Tuesday that 5,194 people had been killed since Israel resumed major operations in the territory on 18 March, ending a two-month truce. The death toll in Gaza since the war broke out has reached 55,600, according to the health ministry.
