Israeli forces have killed at least 73 Palestinians in Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to medics, as two more people, including a six-year-old child, died from Israel-induced starvation in the coastal enclave.
Those killed on Tuesday included 19 aid seekers, as the European Union and 26 countries, including Canada, France and the United Kingdom, condemned the “unimaginable levels” of suffering in Gaza and called for urgent action to halt and reverse the unfolding famine in the war-torn territory.
Survivors of the latest attacks on aid seekers, which took place near the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza, described horrific scenes.
“There was gunfire all around; we didn’t know what was happening. People were dying in front of us, bullets flying between our legs, and we couldn’t do anything,” said a man who gave his name as Sayyid.
“We got here to get a bite to eat, but we can barely make it. We’re exhausted, we’re dying… a piece of bread can now cost your life.”
Another survivor, Mohammed Abu Nahl, described crawling on his stomach, “with bullets flying all around”, as the wounded and dead lay all around him.
“The dead were lying beneath us, and we were pulling them out,” he said. “I came here just to feed my children. I have no money to buy food. If I had food and water, I wouldn’t come here. What should I do? Steal? Loot?
“We call on all countries to stand with us, to stop the war, and to end our suffering.”
The killings at Zikim take the death toll of aid seekers to more than 1,838 since late May, when the notorious United States-backed GHF began its operations in the Gaza Strip.
The Nasser Medical Complex, meanwhile, announced the deaths of six-year-old Jamal Fadi al-Najjar and 30-year-old Wissam Abu Mohsen from malnutrition.
This came shortly after Gaza’s Ministry of Health said that five more people had died of famine within 24 hours, bringing the total number of starvation-related deaths since the start of Israel’s war to 227. The victims include more than 100 children.
The worsening crisis has prompted strong denunciation from dozens of Western nations.
“The humanitarian suffering in Gaza has reached unimaginable levels,” the joint statement from the EU and the foreign ministers of 26 nations said. “Famine is unfolding before our eyes. Urgent action is needed now to halt and reverse starvation. Humanitarian space must be protected, and aid should never be politicised.”
The countries, which also include Australia and Japan, went on to denounce the use of “lethal force” at food distribution sites.
“We call on the government of Israel to provide authorisation for all international NGO aid shipments and to unblock essential humanitarian actors from operating,” they added.
Israel attacks ‘safe zones’, rescue workers
As the number of Israeli-imposed hunger-related deaths continues to rise, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday urged Israel to allow it to stock medical supplies in Gaza before the Israeli military proceeds with its plan to seize Gaza City, a move that has also drawn international condemnation.
“We want to stock up, and we all hear about ‘more humanitarian supplies are allowed in’. Well, it’s not happening yet, or it’s happening at a way too low a pace,” said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Palestinian Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said that Israel’s bombardment of Gaza City has intensified for three consecutive days. The military is using “all types of weapons… bombs, drones, and also highly explosive munitions that cause massive destruction to civilian homes”.
Rescue operations have also come under fire. The Civil Defence said one of its members, Abdul Rahman Maher Abu Latifa, was killed in an Israeli strike on his tent in al-Mawasi. Both his parents were also killed. The service said 137 of its members have been killed since the war began.
Another paramedic, Noah al-Shagnoubi, described being attacked while trying to help wounded people in Gaza City.
“I went to rescue a lady,” he said, lying on a hospital bed, covered in blood.
“Suddenly, I saw a green light directed at me. I fell to the ground and woke up to find myself bleeding. I woke up and kept crawling, found a living child, took him, and jumped with him from the second floor,” al-Shagnoubi added.
Footage verified by Al Jazeera showed the aftermath of an Israeli attack on central Gaza City, with a stream of blood running down the street as people carried a wounded man to a vehicle.
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said that Israeli forces also struck multiple areas across Gaza, including al-Mawasi, designated by Israel as a “safe zone”. A family of five were killed in their makeshift shelter there in the predawn hours.
Israel ‘blocking’ food items
Israel is also blocking the entry of more than 430 food items into Gaza, despite allowing some aid trucks through last month under international pressure, Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Tuesday.
In a statement, it said the banned items include “frozen meat of all kinds, frozen fish, cheese, dairy products, frozen vegetables, and fruits”, along with “hundreds of other items needed by the starving and sick”.
It added that Israel had directly targeted food sources, by not just preventing aid, but deliberately bombing 44 food banks, killing dozens of workers in them, and hitting “57 food distribution centres with bombardment”.
Earlier, the office accused Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the military body reporting on aid deliveries into the enclave, of “a pathetic attempt to cover up an internationally documented crime, the systematic starvation of the population of the Gaza Strip”.
This comes a day after Israel targeted and killed a team of Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza City, an attack that has sparked protests in countries across the world.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not given a clear timetable for his plans to take over Gaza City, forcibly displacing nearly 1 million Palestinians, saying on Sunday that it would happen “fairly quickly”.
Palestine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has blamed the international community for inaction over “the genocide of our people” in Gaza, and urged global powers to uphold their moral, legal and political obligations.
“Despite the international consensus… on the need to implement international humanitarian law and human rights, the occupying power [Israel] continues to expand its aggression and deepen its use of starvation, thirst, and denial of medical treatment as weapons in the war,” it said in a statement on X.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that Israel’s war has killed 61,599 Palestinians and wounded 154,088 since October 7, 2023.