At least 73 Palestinians were killed by Israeli army fire while waiting for humanitarian aid across the Gaza Strip, the health authorities in Gaza said on Sunday, reported Xinhua.
In a press statement, the authorities said 67 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory.
Eyewitnesses told Xinhua that Israeli forces opened fire on thousands of Palestinians gathered near the Zikim area, northwest of Gaza City, as they awaited aid trucks.
Hamas demanded an urgent international investigation into "the dubious U.S.-Israeli mechanism for distributing aid, which has become a mechanism for the systematic killing of civilians."
The current aid distribution points in Gaza are run by Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) backed by the United States and Israel. Contrary to established international humanitarian norms for distributing relief in local communities, the GHF set up only four sites in the whole of Gaza in restricted Israeli military zones, where starving civilians enter through fenced lanes under the eyes of armed security contractors. Chaos results in gunfire.
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital, which received most of the victims, said in a press statement Sunday that Gaza is witnessing "mass killing" through starvation.
He added that medical staff and patients in his hospital have not eaten a single meal for an entire day.
In a separate incident in the southern Gaza Strip, Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis reported that at least six Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire near an aid center north of Rafah.
The Israeli army did not comment on the two incidents.
- Israeli
- Genocide
- Gaza
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
