The UN rights office says it has recorded at least 798 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GFH) and near convoys operated by other relief groups.
The GFH uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system.
After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians trying to reach the GHF’s aid hubs in zones where Israeli forces operate, the United Nations has called its aid model ‘inherently unsafe’ and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.
“(From May 27) up until the seventh of July, we’ve recorded 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the GFH sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys,” UN rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a media briefing in Geneva.
The GHF, which began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May after Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade, told Reuters the UN figures were ‘false and misleading’. It denies that deadly incidents have occurred at its sites.
The OHCHR said it based its figures on sources such as information from hospitals in Gaza, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs and its partners on the ground.
Most of the injuries to Palestinians in the vicinity of aid distribution hubs recorded by the OHCHR since May 27 were gunshot wounds, Shamdasani said.
“We’ve raised concerns about atrocity crimes having been committed and the risk of further atrocity crimes being committed where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food,” she said.
After the GHF assertion that the OHCHR figures are false and misleading, Shamdasani said: “It is not helpful to issue blanket dismissals of our concerns – what is needed is investigations into why people are being killed while trying to access aid.”
There is an acute shortage of food and other basic supplies 21 months into Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, during which much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble and most of its 2.3 million inhabitants displaced.
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