Israel continues to pound Gaza and conduct military operations across the enclave as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaves the US following ceasefire discussions with US President Donald Trump.

Ten Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in the Jabalia al-Nazla area in north Gaza, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa, which added that several were also injured. Two Palestinians were also killed in strikes on Khan Younis and Gaza City.

Additionally, a medic from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society was shot and wounded by Israeli gunfire in Tal al-Sultan in Khan Younis.

The killing comes as Israel doubles down on its military operations, with Israeli forces continuing to push further into Khan Younis in the south, and attempting to surround Beit Hanoun in the north.

Meanwhile, hunger has been “quite visible now”, according to local journalists, who reported that signs of it are “everywhere”. One Al Jazeera reporter said people were going hungry and “fainting in the streets” due to not eating enough.

The UN human rights office has said it had 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 and near convoys run by other relief groups.

The GHF 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 27 May) up until the seventh of July, we’ve recorded 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys,” UN rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a regular media briefing in Geneva.

The GHF, which began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May after Israel lifted an 11-week-old aid blockade, claimed the UN figures were “false and misleading”.

It has denied that deadly incidents have occurred at its sites.

The OHCHR said it bases its figures on a range of sources such as information from hospitals in Gaza, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs and its partners on the ground.

People carry aid from a GHF site in Gaza

Most of the injuries to Palestinians in the vicinity of aid distribution hubs recorded by OHCHR since 27 May were gunshot wounds, Ms 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.

The GHF said it had delivered more than 70 million meals to hungry Gaza Palestinians in five weeks, and that other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has previously cited instances of violent pillaging of aid, while the UN World Food Programme said last week that most trucks carrying food assistance into Gaza had been intercepted by “hungry civilian communities”.

There is an acute shortage of food and other basic supplies 21 months into Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during which much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble and most of its 2.3 million inhabitants displaced.

The agency said one person was killed in a separate strike on Gaza city

Eighteen killed in continued Israeli attacks – civil defence

The updated UN death toll figures come as Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed 18 people today, including ten who were waiting for aid in the south of the war-ravaged territory.

Gaza civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir said that ten people were shot by Israeli forces while waiting for supplies in the Al-Shakoush area northwest of Rafah, where there are regular reports of deadly fire on aid seekers.

The civil defence reported six more people killed in four separate Israeli air strikes in the area of Khan Yunis, in the south of the territory.

Two drone strikes around Gaza City in the north killed two more people, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

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MSF warns acute malnutrition soaring in Gaza

Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders warned that its teams on the ground in Gaza were witnessing surging levels of acute malnutrition in the territory.

The medical charity, known by its French acronym MSF, said levels of acute malnutrition had reached an “all-time high” at two of its facilities in Gaza.

“MSF teams are witnessing a sharp and unprecedented rise in acute malnutrition among people in Gaza,” the organisation said in a statement.

“In Al-Mawasi clinic, southern Gaza, and the MSF Gaza Clinic in the north, we are seeing the highest number of malnutrition cases ever recorded by our teams in the Strip.”

MSF said it now had more than 700 pregnant and breastfeeding women and nearly 500 children with severe and moderate malnutrition currently enrolled in ambulatory therapeutic feeding centres in both clinics.

“This is the first time we have witnessed such a severe scale of malnutrition cases in Gaza,” Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Gaza, said in the statement.

“The starvation of people in Gaza is intentional,” he said, insisting that “it can end tomorrow if the Israeli authorities allow food in at scale”.

Palestinians inspect damage done to a building by an Israeli attack

‘Absolute panic’

Meanwhile, UNICEF Communications Specialist for Children in Gaza said there were “absolute panic” yesterday after nine children were killed in an Israeli attack outside a health clinic in central Gaza.

Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Rosalia Bollen said mothers and children had gathered at the site, which had not yet opened, to receive therapeutic nutrition products for malnourished children.

She said the organisation distributing the aid was one UNICEF worked closely with and a UNICEF team was deployed to the scene in the aftermath of the strike.

“My colleagues went to the hospital, they interviewed several children and mothers,” she said.

“There was a mother of two boys, she lost her one-year-old and her 10-year-old is in the ICU.

“It was a very chaotic scene, there was absolute panic.

“Hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed with a constant inflow of very severely injured people day in day out.

“These aren’t people with a couple of scratches or maybe light concussions, we’re talking about people who’ve lost limbs, who have shrapnel lodged in their bodies with very severe injuries that may be life changing.”

Palestinian children queue for food from a charitable organisation

Ms Bollen said that in the first seven days of July, at least 100 children had been reported killed.

She said what happened yesterday was “not a unique case” and is the “daily reality” for families in Gaza.

She said families have been deprived of the basics that they need to survive, which has led to diseases, malnutrition and preventable deaths.

“There’s just not enough of everything. There’s not enough food, there’s not enough medicine,” she said.

“There’s no hygiene products, sanitary pads, nappies. It’s all very scarce, and this is engineered scarcity.

“We hope that we will be seeing a major change because what families in Gaza need is the mass influx of supplies today.”

Ms Bollen said UNICEF has continued to operate throughout the war and will continue to remain present along with other organisations.

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From 27 Jun 2025 16.47 BST UN chief says US-backed Gaza aid operation is ‘unsafe’ and is ‘killing people’ United Nations secretary general António Guterres said on Friday that a US-backed aid operation in Gaza is “inherently unsafe,” giving a blunt assessment: “It is killing people.” He also said UN-led humanitarian efforts are being “strangled,” aid workers themselves are starving and Israel – as the occupying power – is required to agree to and facilitate aid deliveries into and throughout Palestine, Reuters reports. “People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families. The search for food must never be a death sentence,” Guterres told reporters. António Guterres pictured at UN headquarters on Thursday Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock Share Updated at 16.57 BST

27 Jun 2025 17.53 BST Closing summary We are now closing the live blog. Here is a summary of events today: The Israeli military has launched an investigation into possible war crimes following growing evidence that troops have deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians gathering to receive aid in Gaza .

United Nations secretary general António Guterres said on Friday that a US-backed aid operation in Gaza is “inherently unsafe,” giving a blunt assessment: “It is killing people”, Reuters reported.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said that “the Israeli-US food distribution scheme in Gaza is slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid” as it called on the Israeli authorities to end its siege on the territory.

At least 56,331 Palestinian people have been killed and 132,632 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said. At least 72 Palestinian people were killed and 174 others injured in the last 24 hours, it added.

Gaza rescuers said 62 people were killed on Friday by Israeli forces, including 10 waiting for aid.

Israel’s air force carried out intense airstrikes on mountains overlooking the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh on Friday, in an attack that the Israeli military claimed targeted underground Hezbollah assets.

Lebanon said one person was killed and 21 wounded in strikes with Israel, blaming the death on Hezbollah arms.

The Lebanese prime minister, Nawaf Salam , denounced the Israeli attacks saying they break the terms of the ceasefire signed between Israel and Hezbollah in November.

The 50th Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) medic has been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, the PRCS said in a statement. Haitham Bassam Abu Issa, a nurse at the PRCS clinic in Deir al-Balah in the centre of the Gaza strip, was killed while off duty on Thursday, the PRCS says.

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi indicated on Friday that Tehran may reject any request by the head of the UN nuclear watchdog for visits to Iranian nuclear sites, Reuters reports. In a post on X he said the UN nuclear watchdog head’s insistence to visit Iran sites is “meaningless, even malign”.

Donald Trump reiterated on Friday that Tehran wants to meet following US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities last weekend, but gave no further details, Reuters reports. Trump also said that he would want the International Atomic Energy Agency or another trusted entity to have full rights to conduct inspections in Iran.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday rejected a report that the country’s military commanders ordered their soldiers to fire at Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid in Gaza, Reuters reports.

Netanyahu’s request to postpone his upcoming testimony in his criminal trial by two weeks has been rejected.

Netanyahu is keen to meet US president Donald Trump at the White House in the coming weeks to celebrate the joint US-Israeli bombing campaign of Iran’s nuclear program, according to reports.

Israeli defence minister Israel Katz says he had instructed military to prepare “enforcement plan” against Iran.

The UK said on Friday it would end evacuation flights out of Israel for UK nationals after a sixth and final flight scheduled for Sunday, as demand decreases in light of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran , Reuters reports.

Iran will hold what it described as “historic” funeral proceedings in Tehran on Saturday for 60 killed in its 12-day war with Israel, including top military commanders and nuclear scientists. Share

27 Jun 2025 17.52 BST Israel killed more than 30 senior security officials and 11 senior nuclear scientists, a senior Israeli military official said on Friday in summarising Israel’s 12-day air war with Iran. The 13 June opening strike on Iran, 1,500 km (930 miles) away, severely damaged its aerial defences and destabilised its ability to respond in the critical early hours of the conflict, the official said, according to Reuters. Israel’s air force struck over 900 targets and the military deeply damaged Iran’s missile production during the war that ended with a US-brokered ceasefire, the official said. “The Iranian nuclear project suffered a major blow: The regime’s ability to enrich uranium to 90% was neutralized for a prolonged period. Its current ability to produce a nuclear weapon core has been neutralised,” the official said. Share

27 Jun 2025 17.46 BST IDF opens inquiry into possible war crimes after deaths near Gaza aid sites by Jason Burke and Malak A Tantesh in Gaza View image in fullscreen Palestinians en route to the GHF food distribution site in Khan Younis on 29 May 2025. Photograph: Hatem Khaled/Reuters The Israeli military has launched an investigation into possible war crimes following growing evidence that troops have deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians gathering to receive aid in Gaza. Hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks after being subjected to air attacks, shootings and bombardments by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while waiting for food to be distributed or while making their way todistribution sites. On Friday the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted unnamed Israeli soldiers as saying they had been told to fire at crowds near food distribution sites to keep them away from Israeli military positions. The soldiers said they had concerns about using unnecessary lethal force against people who appeared to pose no threat. Haaretz also quoted unnamed sources as saying that the army unit established to review incidents that may involve breaches of international law had been tasked with examining soldiers’ actions near distribution locations over the past month. In a statement reported by Israeli media, the IDF rejected the accusations, saying that no forces had been ordered “to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centers”. “To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the IDF said. In a joint statement issued late on Friday, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Israel Katz, the defence minister, accused Haaretz of “malicious falsehoods designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world”. You can read the full report here: IDF opens inquiry into possible war crimes after deaths near Gaza aid sites Read more Share

27 Jun 2025 17.41 BST Netanyahu rejects report Israeli troops ordered to fire on Gaza aid-seekers Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday rejected a report that the country’s military commanders ordered their soldiers to fire at Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid in Gaza, Reuters reports. Left-leaning daily Haaretz earlier quoted unnamed soldiers as saying commanders ordered troops to shoot at crowds near aid distribution centres to disperse them even when they posed no threat. “The State of Israel absolutely rejects the contemptible blood libels that have been published in the Haaretz newspaper,” Netanyahu said in a joint statement with defence minister Israel Katz. Share

27 Jun 2025 17.25 BST Trump insists Iran ‘wants to meet’ for talks – reports Donald Trump reiterated on Friday that Tehran wants to meet following US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities last weekend, but gave no further details, Reuters reports. Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, also said that he would want the International Atomic Energy Agency or another trusted entity to have full rights to conduct inspections in Iran. Share

27 Jun 2025 17.22 BST UK says last Israel evacuation flight to leave on Sunday The UK said on Friday it would end evacuation flights out of Israel for UK nationals after a sixth and final flight scheduled for Sunday, as demand decreases in light of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, Reuters reports. “The government has organised multiple flights evacuating British nationals and their dependants from Tel Aviv, prioritising the most vulnerable,” a spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign Office said, adding the number of commercial options for travel was growing. “These flights will end if there is not sufficient demand. We will keep the situation under review.” Share

27 Jun 2025 17.15 BST Iran’s Araghchi says UN nuclear watchdog head’s insistence to visit Iran sites is ‘meaningless, even malign’ Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi indicated on Friday that Tehran may reject any request by the head of the UN nuclear watchdog for visits to Iranian nuclear sites, Reuters reports. In a post on X he said the UN nuclear watchdog head’s insistence to visit Iran sites is “meaningless, even malign”. View image in fullscreen Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi pictured in Moscow on 23 June 2025. Photograph: Alexander Kazakov/AP Share

27 Jun 2025 17.06 BST 50th Palestine Red Crescent medic killed in Gaza since the start of the war The 50th Palestine Red Crescent medic has been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PCRS) said in a statement. Haitham Bassam Abu Issa, a nurse at the PRCS clinic in Deir al-Balah in the centre of the Gaza strip, was killed while off duty on Thursday, the PRCS says. “This brings the total number of PRCS staff and volunteers killed during the conflict to 50 – a deeply shocking figure,” it said. It added that “30 colleagues were killed while on PRCS duty wearing what should have been protective emblems. Those colleagues killed off duty should have been protected like all civilians should be.” Share

27 Jun 2025 16.47 BST UN chief says US-backed Gaza aid operation is ‘unsafe’ and is ‘killing people’ United Nations secretary general António Guterres said on Friday that a US-backed aid operation in Gaza is “inherently unsafe,” giving a blunt assessment: “It is killing people.” He also said UN-led humanitarian efforts are being “strangled,” aid workers themselves are starving and Israel – as the occupying power – is required to agree to and facilitate aid deliveries into and throughout Palestine, Reuters reports. “People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families. The search for food must never be a death sentence,” Guterres told reporters. View image in fullscreen António Guterres pictured at UN headquarters on Thursday Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock Share Updated at 16.57 BST

27 Jun 2025 16.28 BST Iran will hold what it described as “historic” funeral proceedings in Tehran on Saturday for 60 killed in its 12-day war with Israel, including top military commanders and nuclear scientists, AFP reports. The commemorations will begin at 0800 local time (0430 GMT) at Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran, followed by a funeral procession to Azadi (Freedom) Square, about 11 kilometres (7 miles) away. “A brief ceremony will be held there, then the processions of the martyrs will go toward Azadi Square,” said Mohsen Mahmoudi, head of Tehran’s Islamic Development Coordination Council, in a televised interview Friday. “Tomorrow will be a historic day for Islamic Iran and the revolution,” he added. Among the dead is Gen Mohammad Bagheri, a major general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the second-in-command of the armed forces after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He will be buried alongside his wife and daughter, a journalist for a local media outlet, all killed in an Israeli attack. Nuclear scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, also killed in the attacks, will be buried with his wife. Four women and four children are among those to be honoured at the funeral ceremony. View image in fullscreen An Iranian man holds a poster of Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, who was killed in an Israeli strike. Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP Share

27 Jun 2025 16.08 BST Gaza rescuers say 62 killed by Israeli forces including 10 waiting for aid Gaza’s civil defence agency said that Israeli forces killed at least 62 people on Friday, including 10 who were waiting for aid in the Palestinian territory. The reported killing of people seeking aid marks the latest in a string of deadly incidents near aid sites in Gaza, where a US- and Israeli-backed foundation has largely replaced established humanitarian organisations. Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 62 Palestinians had been killed on Friday by Israeli strikes or gunfire in the Gaza Strip. When asked by AFP for comment, the Israeli military said it was looking into the incidents, and denied its troops fired in one of the locations in central Gaza where rescuers said one aid seeker was killed. Bassal told AFP that six people were killed in southern Gaza near one of the distribution sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), and one more in a separate incident in the centre of the territory, where the army denied shooting “at all”. Another three people were killed by a strike while waiting for aid southwest of Gaza City, Bassal said. Share

27 Jun 2025 16.00 BST Lebanon says 1 killed, 21 wounded in strikes as Israel blames death on Hezbollah arms View image in fullscreen Emergency services and local people at the scene of an airstrike in the town of Nabatieh, southern Lebanon on 27 June 2025. Photograph: EPA Lebanon’s health ministry said a woman was killed and 21 other people wounded in Israeli strikes Friday in the country’s south, while the Israeli military blamed Hezbollah munitions for the death (see earlier post). An “Israel enemy strike on an apartment in Nabatieh led to a preliminary toll of one woman killed” and 14 other people wounded, the ministry said in an updated statement carried by the official National News Agency (NNA). The NNA said an Israeli drone targeted the apartment. Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on social media that the army “did not target any civilian building”. The NNA earlier reported “a wave of successive heavy strikes” in several other areas in the Nabatieh region that the health ministry said wounded seven people. An Israeli military statement said fighter jets struck a site that Hezbollah used “to manage its fire and defence array in the area of the Beaufort Ridge”, near Nabatieh and the Israeli border. It said the site was “part of a significant underground project that was completely taken out of use” by the raids. Adraee said the civilian building “was hit by a rocket that was inside the (fire and defence array) site and launched and exploded as a result of the strike”. Share

27 Jun 2025 15.31 BST Israeli defence minister says he instructed military to prepare ‘enforcement plan’ against Iran Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has instructed the military to prepare an enforcement plan against Iran following their 12-day air war, Katz said on Friday in a statement, Reuters reports. The plan “includes maintaining Israel’s air superiority, preventing nuclear advancement and missile production, and responses to Iran for supporting terrorist activities against Israel”, Katz added. Share

27 Jun 2025 15.18 BST Desperate relatives of two French detainees in Iran demanded “proof of life” on Friday after Israel struck their Tehran prison, with a lawyer denouncing their “forced disappearance”, AFP reports. French national Cecile Kohler, 40, and her 72-year-old partner Jacques Paris have been held in Iran since May 2022 on espionage charges their families reject. Their fate has been unknown since Israel targeted Tehran’s Evin prison in an air strike on Monday, before a US-proposed ceasefire between the Middle East foes came into force. Iran’s prison authority transferred inmates out of the prison after it was hit, the judiciary said on Tuesday, but it is not clear how many inmates were moved or who they were. “We don’t know if they are still alive, we don’t know where they are,” Cecile’s sister, Noemie Kohler, said at a press conference in Paris. “We await proof of life immediately.” Anne-Laure Paris said she also had no idea where her father, Jacques, was. “I’m scared for my father’s life,” she said. Chirinne Ardakani, the lawyer of the relatives, said: “Cecile and Jacques, state hostages arbitrarily detained in a cruel and inhuman manner in Iran, are missing.” “In law, this is a forced disappearance,” she added. View image in fullscreen Noemie Kohler, sister of Cecile Kohler, and Anne-Laure Paris, daughter of Jacques Paris attend a press conference along with lawyers Martin Pradel and Chirinne Ardakani, in Paris, France on 27 June. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters Share Updated at 15.19 BST

27 Jun 2025 14.47 BST Summary of the day so far… Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said that “the Israeli-US food distribution scheme in Gaza is slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid” as it called on the Israeli authorities to end its siege on the territory.

At least 56,331 Palestinian people have been killed and 132,632 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said. At least 72 Palestinian people were killed and 174 others injured in the last 24 hours, it added.

Israel’s air force carried out intense airstrikes on mountains overlooking the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh on Friday, in an attack that the Israeli military claimed targeted underground Hezbollah assets.

The Lebanese prime minister, Nawaf Salam , denounced the Israeli attacks saying they break the terms of the ceasefire signed between Israel and Hezbollah in November.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’s request to postpone his upcoming testimony in his criminal trial by two weeks has been rejected.

Netanyahu is keen to meet US president Donald Trump at the White House in the coming weeks to celebrate the joint US-Israeli bombing campaign of Iran’s nuclear program, according to reports. Share

27 Jun 2025 14.29 BST A doctor working at the Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis has described the horror of regularly receiving bodies of Palestinian people killed while trying to get aid. Dr Mohammed Saqer said the “world has lost its heart” and possibly its “humanity forever”, as relentless Israeli attacks continue to devastate the territory and its civilian population, with an often muted reaction from the global press and international community. “At Nasser hospital we receive dozens daily, either dead or wounded. What happened to this world?” he told the Guardian. Dr Saqer added: Because of the horrifying numbers of children and women being killed in Gaza, I find myself thinking crazy thoughts… Why don’t we build shelters for them? Trick the warplanes, hide them from death? We strive to gather whatever food we can find, and give them priority. I know the idea is crazy, but what is the alternative? Share Updated at 14.32 BST

27 Jun 2025 13.55 BST Death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza reaches 56,331, says health ministry At least 56,331 Palestinian people have been killed and 132,632 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Friday. At least 72 Palestinian people were killed and 174 others injured in the last 24 hours, the ministry said. It added in its post on Telegram: A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the streets, and ambulances and civil defense crews cannot reach them. View image in fullscreen Smoke billows while emergency workers try to put out a fire after an Israeli strike at Unrwa’s Osama bin Zaid school in wester Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip on 27 June. Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty Images Share Updated at 15.14 BST

Since setting up its widely condemned aid distribution sites in Gaza two months ago, Israel’s military has killed hundreds of hungry Palestinians trying to access desperately needed food amid a starvation crisis created by Israeli forces themselves.

Israeli soldiers overseeing the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s distribution sites have opened fire on Palestinians waiting for food nearly every day, worsening the territory’s humanitarian crisis by continuing to bomb families and block most aid from entering.

The United Nations’ human rights office said Tuesday that at least 410 Palestinians have been killed trying to reach the GHF sites since May 27, when they were launched. Israeli forces have also killed at least 93 others who were trying to approach the few aid convoys belonging to the UN and other humanitarian groups. According to the Gaza Government Media Office, the number of those killed while getting aid is closer to 549.

“Desperate, hungry people in Gaza continue to face the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risk being killed while trying to get food,” Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the human rights office, said on Tuesday, adding that GHF is “in contradiction with international standards” on aid distribution.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said this week that its 60-bed field hospital in the southernmost city of Rafah has had to activate its mass casualty procedures 20 times since the aid sites launched. On Tuesday, the hospital received a mass casualty influx of 149 cases, the majority of which were gunshot wounds. All responsive patients said they were wounded on their way to an aid site, according to the ICRC.

Palestinians receive food aid at the Nusierat refugee camp in Gaza City, Gaza, on June 26, 2025. Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty Images

“People in the south, for instance, would walk for dozens of kilometers, a journey that would take at least eight hours on foot, and sit there and camp, literally sleeping on the beach overnight. … And around two past midnight, they would start waking up and getting ready for the journey,” European Council visiting fellow Muhammad Shehada said on Thursday.

“At that point, they will try to find their way into the GHF distribution centers. So as soon as that happens, the IDF would claim, ‘We detected unauthorized movement,’ or, ‘We feel threatened, unsafe, unloved, unhappy,’” he continued. “And then they empty machine guns into them, mow them down, gun them down immediately. We’ve seen them also using artillery fire, gunboats firing at people, drones and even airstrikes at starving crowds.”

The Israeli military has claimed that it only opens fire to control the crowds, or when it sees armed gangs or Hamas militants trying to steal food. But Shehada said most of those gangs are actually working with Israeli forces, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed that his government has provided arms to some groups in an attempt to undercut Hamas.

“I have a list of the names of the leaders of those gangs that have been armed, funded and provided equipment by Israel, and the majority of them are drug dealers, convicted murderers and members of ISIS,” Shehada said, citing the UN, the Red Cross and even Israeli media.

The regular barrages from the Israeli military and the presence of armed gangs has left independent aid groups afraid of working in Gaza, he added.

“The goal is basically to deter those organizations from even trying to pick up the aid in the first place, because their humanitarian workers, the truck drivers, are very afraid for their personal safety and their lives,” he continued.

They empty machine guns into them, mow them down, gun them down immediately.Muhammad Shehada, European Council visiting fellow and Gazan analyst

The weaponization of food is part of a wider humanitarian crisis in Gaza — where an average of 112 children a day are admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition, patients with weak immune systems cannot heal from their wounds, and disease and illness are more likely to spread. The World Food Program said that most families in Gaza are forced to survive on one meal per day, and a third of families go entire days without eating.

But with soldiers continuing to open fire on civilians and most aid continuing to sit outside Gaza, it’s not immediately clear what real accountability could look like for those running the private, militarized aid sites.

Al-Kheetan called for an independent investigation into the GHF shootings, telling HuffPost on Thursday that the UN has “repeatedly” raised concerns about Israel’s inability to conduct such a probe. Under international law, third-party states also must search for and then prosecute those who have committed or ordered the commission of what he called a war crime.

But just this week, the U.S. State Department announced it would send $30 million to the GHF, the U.S.’s first known government financial contribution to the opaque organization. Stacy Gilbert, a Biden-era State Department employee who resigned in protest of U.S. policy on Gaza, said on Thursday that instances of such emergency expedited funding are usually reserved for an organization that is already well-known to the government — which the GHF is not.

Palestinians hit by Israeli fire at a food aid distribution point run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) receive care at Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on June 24, 2025. Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images

“Minimum that has to happen is the funding and the basic information about this group has to be public. If the United States government is funding this as a humanitarian operation, it has to be transparent about it,” Gilbert said. “No leaking documents, let’s be honest: Who is behind this, how much funding they’re getting, what is that contract. … We would always, always, always have to know that about humanitarian organizations.”

The daily shootings have led more international groups and countries to speak out more on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with the European Union saying Thursday that it “deplores” the starvation crisis and demanding Israel fully lift the aid blockade. But experts stress that at this point, words from the international communityare not enough.

“There’s this level of pathetic cowardice, deliberate ignorance. They want to not know, they want to remain ignorant in order to maintain plausible deniability,” Shehada said. “The recent show of strength that you see … their own diplomats, their own advisers, their own civil servants keep telling me behind closed doors, ‘This is all fraud, this is all a sham.’ These are maneuvers, PR stunts to grab headlines while continuing to support, to aid, to finance the very genocide that they claim to oppose.”

Dozens more Palestinians were killed or injured in Gaza as they sought desperately needed aid on Thursday, with reports that Israeli forces close to one distribution point had opened fire, the third such incident in as many days.

More than a hundred people have been reported killed since Monday while either trying to reach aid points or waiting to stop and offload the limited number of UN and commercial trucks entering the devastated territory. There have been about 20 such incidents in the last four weeks.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed 15 people and wounded 60 between the town of Nuseirat and in the centre of Gaza early on Thursday morning after thousands had gathered in the hope of receiving rations.

Such reports are difficult to confirm independently but interviews conducted by the Guardian with witnesses appeared to corroborate many of the details.

Abdullah Ahmed, 31, said he had been about a kilometre from an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US and Israeli-backed private organisation, when there were a series of explosions and shootings at around 2am local time.

“I heard that the GHF site would open in the morning and set out early from my home [in the nearby town of al-Bureij] to get food,” he said. “Because there are always many people, we try to be the first to increase our chances of getting aid.

“When I was heading to the aid distribution point, there was heavy but intermittent gunfire from tanks, artillery and quadcopters.“As we got closer to the site, gunfire resumed and shells were launched. A shell fell just a few metres away from me and shrapnel hit me in my chest, neck and leg.”

View image in fullscreen A Palestinian woman in Beit Lahia waits for UN aid trucks to enter northern Gaza on Wednesday. Photograph: Ebrahim Hajjaj/Reuters

Abdel Fattah Younis, 20, from Nuseirat, said the shooting or shelling occurred when crowds had surged towards the GHF site in the belief that it had opened to distribute aid.

“We moved toward it and we became fully exposed … Suddenly, intense gunfire was directed at us … I was shot once in the chest and another bullet lodged in my lower back,” he said.

Dr Nasser Abu Samra, the head of the emergency reception department at al-Awda hospital, said it received nine dead and 120 injured from the incident.

The Israeli army told Agence France-Presse that troops fired “warning shots” at “suspects” approaching them in the Netzarim area, but that it was “not aware of any injured individuals”.

The reported incident came on a particularly bloody day in Gaza, with about 60 people reported killed in a wave of airstrikes.

Food has become extremely scarce in Gaza since Israel’s imposition of a tight blockade on all supplies throughout March and April, leaving many of the territory’s inhabitants facing a “critical risk of famine”.

Since the blockade was partially lifted last month, the UN has tried to bring in aid but has faced major obstacles including rubble-choked roads, Israeli military restrictions, continuing airstrikes and growing anarchy.

Aid officials said an average of 23 UN trucks a day had entered Gaza through the main checkpoint of Kerem Shalom in recent days, but most have been “self-distributed” by hungry Palestinians who stopped them, or looted by organised gangs.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday it has been able to dispatch just 9,000 tonnes of food aid into Gaza over the last four weeks, “a tiny fraction of what a population of 2.1 million hungry people needs”.

Israel hopes the GHF will replace the previous comprehensive system of aid distribution run by the UN, which Israeli officials claim allowed Hamas to steal and sell supplies.

UN agencies and major aid groups, which have delivered humanitarian aid across Gaza since the start of 20-month-long war, have rejected the new system, saying it is impractical, inadequate and unethical. They deny there is widespread theft of aid by Hamas.

GHF said in an email on Wednesday that it had provided more than 30m meals “safely and without incident” since it began operating last month.

Israel launched its campaign intended to destroy Hamas after the group’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage. Hamas still holds 53 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Gaza’s health ministry said on Tuesday that 5,194 people had been killed since Israel resumed major operations in the territory on 18 March, ending a two-month truce.

The death toll in Gaza since the war broke out has reached 55,600, according to the health ministry.