Today’s Gaza death toll rises to 44, including 22 aid seekers
Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 44 people so far today, medical sources say. The figure includes 22 people who were killed while waiting for aid during the Israeli-induced starvation crisis, the sources told Al Jazeera.
Expert likens Israeli-run Gaza aid sites to Squid Game
Neve Gordon, from London-based Queen Mary University, says the Israeli-run GHF “is not a humanitarian organisation; this is a famine profiteering organisation”.
“The UN has 400 sites through which it distributes food. This organisation put up four sites. It put them within zones that are in the midst of the conflict. And what we have been witnessing is a kind of Squid Game or Hunger Game, where people that are starving are approaching the food and are being shot down like prey,” he told Al Jazeera from London.
“This is clearly not about providing humanitarian aid but about providing camouflage for Israel so it can continue its onslaught on Gaza.”
Gordon added that civil society in the United States and Europe is seeing through television and Al Jazeera’s reporting what’s going on in Gaza and is outraged.
“But it’s our leaders who talk the talk but have double standards and are unwilling to sanction Israel, put pressure on Israel. And instead continue to arm Israel as it carried out this genocide,” he said.
“We need to start thinking how our leaders here in London, throughout Europe and the United States are actually complicit with this genocide and starvation. And bring them to court, if not the ICC [International Criminal Court], then through universal jurisdiction in local courts.”
Members of a private US security company, contracted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private US-backed aid group which the UN refuses to work with over neutrality concerns, direct displaced Palestinians as they gather to receive relief supplies at a distribution centre in the central Gaza Strip on June 8
UN says one million women and girls starving in Gaza
The United Nations office in Geneva has warned that one million women and girls in Gaza are now starving, as the territory’s humanitarian crisis continues to worsen.
In a post on X, the UN said: “One million. That’s how many women and girls are starving in Gaza. This horrific situation is unacceptable and must end.
“We continue to demand the delivery of lifesaving aid for all women and girls, an immediate ceasefire, and the release of all hostages.”
As we’ve been reporting, Gaza’s hunger crisis is accelerating, with at least 175 people, including 93 children, confirmed dead from forced starvation, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
Gaza’s death toll rises as hospitals receive bodies of more aid seekers
Gaza’s Health Ministry reports that 119 bodies, including 15 recovered from under the rubble or other places, and 866 injured Palestinians arrived at the enclave’s hospitals over the past 24 hours.
At least 65 Palestinians were killed while seeking aid, and 511 more were wounded.
This brings the toll of the Israeli attacks to 60,839 people killed and 149,588 wounded since October 7, 2023. Since March 18, when Israel violated the ceasefire agreement with Hamas, at least 9,350 people have been killed and 37,547 injured.
The ministry noted that it added 290 people to the overall death toll after data gathering was completed and approved by a judicial committee that was following up on reports and missing persons.
