At least 40 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Gaza on Monday, including 10 seeking aid, health authorities said, adding another five had died of starvation in what humanitarian agencies warn may be an unfolding famine.
The 10 died in two separate incidents near aid sites belonging to the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in central and southern Gaza, local medics said. The UN says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in the enclave since the GHF began operating in May, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.
“Everyone who goes there, comes back either with a bag of flour or carried back [on a wooden stretcher] as a martyr, or injured. No one comes back safe,” said 40-year-old Palestinian Bilal Thari.
He was among mourners at Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital on Monday who had gathered to collect the bodies of their loved ones killed a day earlier by Israeli fire as they sought aid, according to Gaza's health officials.
At least 13 Palestinians were killed on Sunday while waiting for the arrival of UN aid trucks at the Zikim crossing on the Israeli border with the northern Gaza Strip, the officials added.
At the hospital, some bodies were wrapped in thick patterned blankets because white shrouds, which hold special significance in Islamic burials, were in short supply due to continued Israeli border restrictions and the mounting number of daily deaths, Palestinians said.
“We don’t want war, we want peace, we want this misery to end. We are out on the streets, we all are hungry, we are all in bad shape. Women are out there on the streets, we have nothing available for us to live a normal life like all human beings, there’s no life,” Thari told Reuters.
There was no immediate comment by Israel on the incidents of shootings on Sunday and Monday.
Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it is taking steps for more aid to reach its population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, air drops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.
DEATHS FROM HUNGER
Meanwhile, five more people died of starvation or malnutrition over the past 24 hours, Gaza's health ministry said on Monday. The new deaths raised the toll of those dying from hunger to 180, including 93 children, since the war began.
UN agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease access to it.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that co-ordinates aid, said that during the past week, more than 23,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid in 1,200 trucks had entered Gaza but that hundreds of the trucks had yet to be driven to aid distribution hubs by UN and other international organisations.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said on Sunday that more than 600 aid trucks had arrived since Israel eased restrictions late in July. However, witnesses and Hamas sources said many of those trucks have been looted by desperate displaced people and armed gangs.
Palestinian and UN officials said Gaza needs about 600 aid trucks to enter per day to meet the humanitarian requirements — the number Israel used to allow into Gaza before the war.
Reuters
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