GAZA: Gaza's civil defence agency said 33 people were killed by Israeli fire in the Palestinian territory on Wednesday, including 11 who were seeking aid. Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that 11 people were killed and more than 100 wounded "after the occupation forces opened fire and launched several shells... at thousands of citizens" who had gathered to queue for food in central Gaza.
The civil defence agency said another 19 people were killed in three Israeli strikes on Wednesday, which it said targeted houses and a tent for displaced people. The Israeli military said that regarding one of those attacks that its troops were "operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities". Three more people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a neighbourhood northeast of Gaza City on Wednesday, Bassal said.
Israeli restrictions on media in the Gaza Strip and other difficulties in accessing some areas mean media is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza denounced "a terrible massacre" as a result of shelling on a crowd of "thousands of civilians". "There are dozens of martyrs who are still on the ground and others who were turned into pieces because of the shells falling directly among the civilians," a ministry official told a press conference.
In early March, Israel imposed a total aid blockade on Gaza amidst an impasse in truce negotiations, only partially easing restrictions in late May. That was when the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began distributing aid, but its operations have been marred by chaotic scenes and dozens of deaths.
The UN's humanitarian agency OCHA said on Monday that during recent aid distributions several children have been "temporarily separated from their families due to mass movements around militarised distribution points". GHF said in a statement that its teams had distributed two million meals on Tuesday "without incident" and nearly 28 million since it started operating.
At Gaza City's Al Ahli hospital, one of the last remaining functioning health facilities in the territory's badly hit north, Amer Abu Safiya said that there was little doctors could do to treat a wound on his hand. "Every day we are being bombed... Al Ahli Hospital has been destroyed. Medical services are halted. As you can see, there's nothing to wrap around my hand and there's no medication", he said, holding up his swollen hand while laying down on a makeshift bed in the hospital's backyard.
The Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday that 5,334 people have been killed since Israel resumed major operations in the territory on March 18, ending a two-month truce. The overall death toll in Gaza since the war broke out has reached 55,637 people, according to the health ministry. — AFP
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