Nearly 800 killed seeking aid from GHF in Gaza

GENEVA: Nearly 800 people have died trying to access aid in Gaza since late May, with most killed near the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanita­rian Foundation’s (GHF) sites, the United Nations said on Friday.

An officially private effort, the GHF began operations on May 26 after Israel halted supplies into the Gaza Strip for more than two months, sparking warnings of imminent famine.

Since those operations began and through July 7, UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the agency had recorded “615 killings in the vicinity of the GHF sites”.

Another 183 people had been killed “presumably on the routes of aid convoys” carried out by UN and other aid organisations, she told reporters in Geneva.

“This is nearly 800 people who have been killed while trying to access aid,” she said, adding that “most of the injuries are gunshot injuries”.

Israeli forces kill 30 more Palestinians in air, ground attacks

GHF operations, which effectively sidelined a vast UN aid delivery network in Gaza, have been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people waiting to collect rations.

The GHF, which said Thursday it had distributed more than 69 million meals to date, has denied that fatal shootings have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points.

The Israeli army said Friday it had issued instructions to Israel’s forces in the field “following lessons learned” after reports of deadly incidents at distribution facilities.

It explained that it “allows the American civilian organisation (GHF) to distribute aid to Gaza residents independently, and operates in proximity to the new distribution zones to enable the distribution alongside the continuation of IDF operational activities in the Gaza Strip”.

Shamdasani highlighted that the UN rights office had repeatedly raised “serious concerns about respect for international humanitarian law principles” in the war in Gaza.

“Where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food and medicine, and where they are being attacked, where… they have a choice between being shot or being fed, this is unacceptable,” she said.

Responding to the UN’s figures, Israel’s military said it had worked to minimise “possible friction between the population and the IDF forces as much as possible”.

“Following incidents in which harm to civilians who arrived at distribution facilities was reported, thorough examinations were conducted… and instructions were issued to forces in the field following lessons learned,” it added.

Fresh deaths

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 30 people on Friday, including 10 who were waiting for aid in the south of the war-ravaged territory.

Gaza civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir said that 10 people were shot by Israeli forces on Friday while waiting for supplies in the Al-Shakoush area northwest of Rafah, where there have been repeated reports of deadly fire on aid seekers.

In an update, the civil defence agency reported a wave of Israeli air strikes, drone attacks and bombings across the densely populated territory, which has been devastated by 21 months of war.

A Palestinian speaking to AFP from southern Gaza on condition of anonymity reported ongoing attacks and widespread devastation, with Israeli tanks seen near Khan Yunis.

“The situation remains extremely difficult in the area — intense gunfire, intermittent air strikes, artillery shelling, and ongoing bulldozing and destruction of displacement camps and agricultural land to the south, west and north of Al-Maslakh,” an area to Khan Yunis’s south, the witness said.

The civil defence also reported five people killed in an Israeli strike the previous night on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Jabalia al-Nazla, in northern Gaza.

Nearly all of Gaza’s population has been displaced at least once during the war, which has created dire humanitarian conditions for the territory’s more than two million inhabitants.

Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have come under repeated Israeli attack, with the military often saying it was targeting Hamas fighters hiding among civilians.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2025