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Israeli forces killed at least 95 people in Gaza over the last 24 hours, six of them near an aid distribution centre, the local health ministry said on Sunday.
Many more Palestinians were feared dead as rescuers scrambled to find people trapped under the rubble of a residential building bombed in Gaza City.
The Israeli army gave “no warning, no alert” before striking the building on Saturday, Palestinian civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Basel told Al Jazeera.
The strike killed at least 16 people in the neighbourhood, including several women and children.
“Instead of waking up to cheer our children and dress them up to enjoy Eid,” Hamed Keheel, a displaced Palestinian at the site, said, “we wake up to carry women and children’s bodies from under rubble.”
Six of the Palestinians killed over the last day were on their way to get food aid, Associated Press reported, citing hospital staff in Gaza.
The besieged Palestinian territory’s nearly two million people rely almost entirely on food aid after the widespread Israeli destruction of its agriculture and nearly three-month blockade.
The UN has warned that Gaza’s population is at dire risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade.
Shootings by Israeli forces are being reported frequently near aid distribution hubs run by US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah where Palestinians gather to receive food aid.
In all, according to Gaza health officials, over 80 people have been killed in shootings by Israeli soldiers near these aid hubs over just two weeks.
“As soon as some people tried to advance towards the aid centre, the Israeli forces opened fire from armoured vehicles stationed near the centre, firing into the air and then at civilians,” Gaza resident Samir Abu Hadid told AFP news agency.
The controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations in late May, replacing UN networks that have been working in the region for decades.
Critics have slammed the group saying its operations weaponise aid.
“There is no food, no flour, no shelter, no mosques, no homes, no mattresses,” Kamel Emran, a resident of Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, told AP after attending Eid prayers on Saturday. “The conditions are very, very harsh.”
On Saturday, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it could not distribute any humanitarian relief due to Hamas-issued “direct threats”.
“These threats made it impossible to proceed today without putting innocent lives at risk,” the group alleged in a statement.
Hamas told Reuters that it had no knowledge of these “alleged threats”.
Since Israel invaded Gaza in October 2023, its soldiers have killed over 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Amid the looming famine, health authorities have recorded more than 300 miscarriages over 80 days in Gaza, with basic medical supplies like vitamins and iron supplements impossible to obtain.
“What we are seeing now is the direct fallout of Israel’s weaponising of hunger in Gaza, impacting babies’ growth,” Brenda Kelly, a consultant obstetrician at Oxford University Hospital, told Al Jazeera, “and growth restriction is one of the leading causes of miscarriages and stillbirth.”
English (US) ·