Gaza aid distribution site or ‘active combat zone’?
Witnesses say the latest deadly shooting of hungry Palestinians in southern Gaza occurred about 6am (03:00 GMT) when they were told the site would open. Many headed towards it early to try to get desperately needed food before large crowds gathered.
Asked to comment on the latest killings, the Israeli military said it fired on people who “continued advancing in a way that endangered the soldiers” despite warnings. The area around the distribution point has been declared an “active combat zone” at night, it said.
But survivors said it was sunrise when the mass shooting began.
“Around 4:30am, people started gathering in the al-Alam area of Rafah. After about an hour and a half, hundreds moved toward the site, and the army opened fire,” witness Abdallah Nour al-Din said.
Outside Nasser Hospital, where emergency workers brought the casualties, footage showed mourners crying over blood-stained funeral shrouds.
A funeral is held at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis for those killed at the US- and Israel-backed aid site on June 8
UN special rapporteur decries GHF as ‘humanitarian camouflage’
Francesca Albanese has criticised the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has replaced the United Nations-backed aid delivery system in the Palestinian enclave on Israel’s orders.
Following yet another deadly shooting near an aid hub operated by GHF today, Albanese decried the scheme as “humanitarian camouflage”, which she called an “essential tactic of this genocide”.
“History will prove right those who had sounded the alarm, and it will be of no consolation: the damage is done. Thanks to the moral & political corruption of the world we live in,” she wrote in a post on X.
Search for water, food in northern Gaza grows more desperate
Today’s deadly attacks in the south again show that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is insufficient in the way it’s running aid delivery across the southern part of Gaza.
But in the north, living conditions are becoming even more difficult. People are not just spending hours searching for water and food, now they are spending half the day or the whole day.
By the end of the day, we’ll see a lot of people are very tired, very exhausted, very dehydrated, simply because they could not find food, could not find water.
All of this is happening while the attacks are still taking place. Many of the injuries are transferred to the two remaining operational hospitals, al-Shifa and al-Ahli Arab.
Those hospitals are running out of medical supplies. And of course, this is happening with zero aid coming to the northern part of Gaza: no water, no food, no medical supplies.
