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At least 38 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday in the Gaza Strip while seeking aid from United Nations convoys and sites run by an Israeli-backed American contractor, according to local health officials.
The Israeli military said it had fired warning shots when crowds approached its forces.
Another 25 people, including several women and children, were killed in Israeli airstrikes, according to local hospitals in Gaza. The military said it only targets Hamas militants.
UN-backed food security experts said last week the “worst-case scenario” of famine is playing out in Gaza, with mounting evidence of “widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease” driving a rise in hunger-related deaths.
Israel has repeatedly refuted claims that it has contributed to a hunger crisis in Gaza, instead pointing the finger at Hamas and asserting that the designated terror group has transformed humanitarian aid into a tool to support its fighters.
A new UN report said only 1.5 per cent of Gaza’s cropland is accessible and undamaged.
Of the 38 Palestinians killed while seeking aid, at least 28 died in the Morag Corridor, an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where UN convoys have been repeatedly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds in recent days, and where witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire.
The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots as Palestinians advanced towards them, and that it was not aware of any casualties.
Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies, reported that an additional four individuals were killed in the Teina area, on a path leading to a site in southern Gaza operated by the Israeli-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an American contractor.
The al-Awda Hospital said it received the bodies of six people killed near a GHF site in central Gaza.
GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites.
Two of the Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza City, in the north of the territory, killing 13 people there, including six children and five women, according to the al-Ahli Hospital, which received the bodies.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its militants are entrenched in heavily populated areas.
UN experts say Israeli-backed aid group should be dismantled.
Israel facilitated the establishment of four GHF sites in May after blocking the entry of all food, medicine and other goods for 2.5 months.
Israeli and United States officials said a new system was needed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off humanitarian aid. Hamas has denied stealing aid.
An internal US government analysis, conducted by a bureau within the US Agency for International Development in late June, found no evidence of systematic theft of US-funded humanitarian supplies by Hamas.
Separately, the European Commission has said it has found no reports of Hamas stealing humanitarian aid in Gaza.
The UN, which has delivered aid to hundreds of distribution points across Gaza throughout the war when conditions allow, has rejected the new system, saying it forces Palestinians to travel long distances and risk their lives for food, and that it allows Israel to control who gets aid, potentially using it to advance plans for further mass displacement.
The UN human rights office said last week at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food since 27 May, mostly near GHF sites but also along UN convoy routes where trucks have been overwhelmed by crowds. It says nearly all were killed by Israeli fire.
This week, a group of UN special rapporteurs and independent human rights experts called for the GHF to be disbanded, saying it is “an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law”.
