The United Nations has said 798 have been killed at food distribution points in Gaza – six weeks after a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid organisation began operating in the Palestinian territory.
Of those, 615 people were killed at sites of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which began distributing aid on May 27, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said on Friday.
A further 183 Palestinians were killed “presumably on the routes of aid convoys,” the UN body’s chief spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a press conference in Geneva.
“This is nearly 800 people who have been killed while trying to access aid,” she said, adding that most of the injuries of those killed were gunshot wounds.
“We’ve raised concerns about atrocity crimes having been committed and the risk of further atrocity crimes,” she said.
“Where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food and medicine, and where they are being attacked, where again…they have a choice between being shot or being fed”.
It is not clear who is responsible for all of these deaths, with reports circulating of both Israeli troops and contractors from the GHF firing live ammunition at Palestinians seeking aid.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has said its directives “prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians” and that it has fired “warning shots” at Palestinians approaching its forces in what it describes suspicious manner.
The GHF denies there has been any violence in or around the sites themselves, which are in Israeli military zones off limits to independent media.
However, two US contractors previously told The Associated Press that their colleagues used live ammunition and stun grenades as crowds scrambled for food, allegations denied by the foundation.
The GHF has described these claims as “categorically false” and has also denied involvement in any population transfer plans.
In a press conference in May, however, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to link the initiatives, saying Israel would implement the new aid program and then create a “sterile zone” in southern Gaza, free of Hamas, where the Palestinian population would be relocated.
Netanyahu has said Israel will maintain lasting control over Gaza and has ruled out any role for the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority, led by political rivals of Hamas.
The OHCHR has described the “militarised aid distribution model” of the GHF as seeking to “sideline the UN and its experienced humanitarian partners”.
Condemning the six weeks of alleged killings at aid sites, World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said that he is “slowly lacking words to describe the scenario”.
“People being shot at distribution sites…scores of women and children and men and boys and girls being killed while either getting food or in what’s supposedly safe shelters or on the road to health clinics or inside health clinics – this is far beyond unacceptable,” he said.
In a statement on Thursday, UNICEF chief Catherine Russell said that the killing of families trying to access life-saving aid is “unconscionable”.
The Israeli military reportedly said that it was targeting a Hamas member involved in the terror attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023.
Follow STV News on WhatsApp
Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
