04/07/2025
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04/07/2025
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DEIR al-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) Israeli airstrikes killed 15 Palestinians in Gaza early Friday, while a hospital said another 20 people died in shootings while seeking aid.
Meanwhile, the U.N. human rights office says it has recorded 613 Palestinians killed within the span of a month in Gaza while trying to obtain aid. Most were killed while trying to reach food distribution points run by an Israeli-backed American organization, while others were massed waiting for aid trucks connected to the United Nations or other humanitarian organizations, it said.
Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the rights office was not able to attribute responsibility for the killings. But she said “it is clear that the Israeli military has shelled and shot at Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points” operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
In a message to The Associated Press, Shamdasani said that of the total tallied, 509 killings were “GHF-related,” meaning at or near its distribution sites.
“Information keeps coming in,” she added. “This is ongoing and it is unacceptable.”
The GHF has denied any serious injuries or deaths on its sites and says shootings outside their immediate vicinity are under the purview of Israel’s military. In a statement Friday, GHF cast doubt on the casualty figures and accused the U.N. of trying “to falsely smear our effort.” The army says it fires warnings shots as a crowd control measure or opens fire if its troops are threatened.
The Israeli military also issued new evacuation orders Friday in northeast Khan Younis in southern Gaza and urged Palestinians to move west ahead of planned military operations against Hamas in the area. The new evacuation zones pushed Palestinians into increasingly smaller spaces by the coast.
20 killed Friday while seeking aid
Since GHF began distributions in late May, witnesses have said almost daily that Israeli troops open fire toward crowds of Palestinians on the roads leading to the food centers. To reach the sites, people must walk several kilometers (miles) through an Israeli military zone where troops control the road.
Officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said at least three Palestinians were killed Friday on the way to GHF sites in the area of Rafah in southern Gaza.
On Friday, in reaction to the U.N. report, the Israeli military said it was investigating reports of people killed and wounded while seeking aid and that it had given instructions to troops in the field based on “lessons learned” from reviewing the incidents. It said it was working at “minimizing possible friction between the population” and Israeli forces, including by installing fences and placing signs on the routes.
Separately, witnesses have said Israeli troops open fire on crowds of Palestinians who gather in military-controlled zones to wait for aid trucks entering Gaza for the U.N. or other aid organizations not associated with GHF. The crowds are usually made up of people desperate for food who grab supplies off the passing trucks, and armed gangs have also looted trucks.
On Friday, 17 people were killed waiting for trucks in eastern Khan Younis in the Tahliya area, officials at Nasser Hospital said.
Three survivors told the AP they had gone to wait for the trucks in a military “red zone” in Khan Younis and that troops opened fire from a tank and drones.
It was a “crowd of people, may God help them, who want to eat and live,” said Seddiq Abu Farhana, who was shot in the leg, forcing him to drop a bag of flour he had grabbed. “There was direct firing.”
Airstrikes also hit the Muwasi area on the southern end of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes are sheltering in tent camps. Of the 15 people killed in the strikes, eight were women and one was a child, according to the hospital.
Israel’s military said it was looking into Friday’s reported airstrikes. It had no immediate comment on the reported shootings surrounding the aid trucks.
