Israeli forces kill or injure 11 Palestinians awaiting food trucks, say Gaza officials

Eleven Palestinians were killed or injured on Tuesday morning after Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd waiting for food trucks in central Gaza, civil defence officials in the devastated territory have said.

More than a hundred Palestinians have died in recent days after being targeted by the Israeli military in Gaza as they gathered near food distribution centres or on routes along which trucks were expected to travel.

The Israeli military said it was “looking into” reports of the new incident.

Mahmoud Bassal, a civil defence spokesperson, told AFP that 11 people were killed and more than 100 wounded on Monday morning “after [Israeli] forces opened fire and launched several shells … at thousands of citizens” who had gathered to queue for food in central Gaza.

The civil defence agency said a further 19 people were killed in three Israeli strikes on Wednesday, which it said targeted houses and a tent for displaced people.

Food has become extremely scarce in Gaza since a tight blockade on all supplies entering Gaza was imposed by Israel throughout March and April, threatening many of the 2.3 million people who live there with a “critical risk of famine”.

The UN humanitarian office OCHA said this week that its partners “continue to warn of the risk of famine in Gaza, amid catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity”.

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 23 UN trucks on average had entered Gaza through the main checkpoint of Kerem Shalom in recent days but most have been “self-distributed” by hungry Palestinians who stop them or looted by organised gangs.

“A few made it to the warehouses and the bakeries but the majority were stopped along the way … and offloaded by hungry civilians in critical need of food to feed their families,” a UN official said.

On Tuesday morning, at least 59 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded in Khan Younis, according to medical officials, as they waited for a truck loaded with flour. Other violence elsewhere in Gaza, including a shooting near an distribution site in the city of Rafah, took the day’s overall death toll among Palestinians seeking food to at least 73.

Many of the recent incidents have involved Israeli forces opening fire on crowds trying to reach food distribution points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private organisation that began operating in Gaza last month with Israeli and US support.

On Monday, at least 37 Palestinians were killed as they tried to reach a GHF site, local authorities said. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) disputed the death toll, saying it did not match its information. Witnesses blamed that shooting on Israeli troops who opened fire early in the morning as crowds of hungry Palestinians converged on two hubs managed by the GHF.

The IDF said in a statement: “Despite warnings that the area is an active combat zone, overnight several attempts were made by suspects to approach IDF troops who were operating in the area of Rafah, posing a danger to them. IDF troops operated in order to remove the threat and prevent the suspects from approaching them, and fired warning shots.”

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 aid. 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.

The GHF’s provisions so far have been grossly inadequate, humanitarian officials in Gaza say.

UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF over concerns it was designed to advance Israel’s military objectives.

Israel launched its campaign aiming 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 another 251 hostage. The militants still hold 53 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals

The Gaza 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 55,493, according to the health ministry.