Israeli forces kill over 70 people near Gaza aid distribution point in deadliest massacre yet
Khan Younis, Gaza - Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli forces on Tuesday killed more than 70 people in the southern city of Khan Yunis in the latest massacre committed near an aid site.
Al Jazeera cited Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmud Bassal, who said the horrific scene unfolded as hundreds of starving Palestinians gathered in Khan Younis, not far from an aid distribution point run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
"Israeli drones fired at the citizens. Some minutes later, Israeli tanks fired several shells at the citizens, which led to a large number of martyrs and wounded," Bassal said, adding that some 200 people had been injured.
The Israeli army, which is currently also waging war on Iran, said the details of the incident were "under review."
The Gaza Health Ministry reported that as a result of the attacks, "51 martyrs and more than 200 injuries have arrived at Nasser Medical Complex, including 20 in critical condition."
In early March, Israel imposed a total aid blockade on the Gaza Strip after unilaterally breaking a ceasefire with Hamas, subjecting the entire population to starvation as well as bombardment.
Amid widespread accusations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, Israeli authorities in late May allowed a trickle of aid to be distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is run by US contractors and has neither the expertise nor the resources to deal with the catastrophic conditions imposed on the territory's populations.
Since then, mass killing of Palestinians gathering to receive meager packages of aid – often in humiliating and dangerous circumstances – have become a near-daily occurrence, with Israeli forces regularly opening fire on people and sometimes using aid distribution points to detain people.
Whole of Gaza at risk of starvation as Israeli killings continue
The UN's humanitarian agency OCHA said Monday that some children have been "temporarily separated from their families due to mass movements around militarized distribution points."
OCHA's humanitarian partners in Gaza also "continue to warn of the risk of famine in Gaza, amid catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity".
Workers raced to restore Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday, one of the last remaining functioning health facilities in Gaza's north, an area particularly hard-hit by the war.
They cleared piles of rubble out of the courtyard to make space for ambulances, breaking large chunks of concrete from a collapsed storey with sledgehammers.
Amer Abu Safiya, a patient at the hospital who suffered from a wound on his hand, told AFP there wasn't much doctors could do to help him.
"Every day we are being bombed from the north to the south. Al-Ahli Hospital has been destroyed. Medical services are halted. As you can see, there's nothing to wrap around my hand, and there's no medication," he said, holding up his swollen hand while laying down on a makeshift bed in the hospital's backyard.
Cover photo: REUTERS