At least 40 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Gaza yesterday, including 10 seeking aid, health authorities said, adding another five had died of starvation in what humanitarian agencies warn may be an unfolding famine.
The 10 died in two separate incidents near aid sites belonging to the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in central and southern Gaza, local medics said. The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in the enclave since the GHF began operating in May 2025, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.
“Everyone who goes there, comes back either with a bag of flour or carried back (on a wooden stretcher) as a martyr, or injured. No one comes back safe,” said 40-year-old Palestinian Bilal Thari.
He was among mourners at Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital yesterday who had gathered to collect the bodies of their loved ones killed a day earlier by Israeli fire as they sought aid, according to Gaza’s health officials.
At least 13 Palestinians were killed on Sunday while waiting for the arrival of UN aid trucks at the Zikim crossing on the Israeli border with the northern Gaza Strip, the officials added.
At the hospital, some bodies were wrapped in thick patterned blankets because white shrouds, which hold special significance in Islamic burials, were in short supply due to continued Israeli border restrictions and the mounting number of daily deaths, Palestinians said.
“We don’t want war, we want peace, we want this misery to end. We are out on the streets, we all are hungry, we are all in bad shape, women are out there on the streets, we have nothing available for us to live a normal life like all human beings, there’s no life,” Thari told Reuters.
There was no immediate comment by Israel on the incidents of shootings on Sunday and Monday.
Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it is taking steps for more aid to reach its population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, air drops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.
Meanwhile, five more people died of starvation or malnutrition over the past 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said yesterday. The new deaths raised the toll of those dying from hunger to 180, including 93 children, since the war began.
UN agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease access to it.
US states and cities that boycott Israeli companies will be denied federal aid for natural disaster preparedness, the Trump administration has announced, tying routine federal funding to its political stance.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency stated in grant notices that states must follow its ‘terms and conditions’. Those conditions require they certify they will not sever ‘commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies’ to qualify for funding. The requirement applies to at least $1.9 billion that states rely on to cover search-and-rescue equipment and backup power systems among other expenses.
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