Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Saturday, June 7, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution center. The shooting deaths were the latest reported near the aid center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in the southern district of Rafah, and came after it resumed distributions following a brief suspension in the wake of similar deaths earlier this week.
An aid boat with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, was meanwhile nearing Gaza in a bid to highlight the plight of Palestinians in the face of an Israeli blockade that has only been partially eased.
Civil defense spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP that at around 7:00 am (0400 GMT), "six people were killed and several others wounded by the forces of the Israeli occupation near the Al-Alam roundabout." Gazans have gathered at the roundabout almost daily since late May to collect humanitarian aid from the GHF aid center about one kilometer away.
The Israeli military told AFP that troops had fired "warning shots" at individuals that it said were "advancing in a way that endangered the troops." Samir Abu Hadid, who was there early Saturday, told AFP that thousands of people had gathered near the roundabout. "As soon as some people tried to advance towards the aid center, the Israeli occupation forces opened fire from armored vehicles stationed near the center, firing into the air and then at civilians," Abu Hadid said.
The GHF, officially a private effort with opaque funding, began operations in late May as Israel partially eased a more than two-month aid blockade on the territory. UN agencies and major aid groups have declined to work with it, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals.
Israel has come under increasing international criticism over the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where the United Nations warned in May that the entire population was at risk of famine.
The aid boat Madleen, organized by an international activist coalition, was sailing towards Gaza on Saturday, aiming to breach Israel's naval blockade and deliver aid to the territory, organizers said. The group said it remains in contact with international legal and human rights bodies to ensure the safety of those on board, warning that any interception would constitute "a blatant violation of international humanitarian law."
The Palestinian territory was under Israeli naval blockade even before the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war, and the Israeli military has made clear it intends to enforce the blockade.
The Israeli military has stepped up its operations in Gaza in recent weeks in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war. During the attack, militants abducted 251 hostages, 55 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 the Israeli military says are dead.
In a special operation in the Rafah area on Friday, Israeli forces retrieved the body of Thai hostage Nattapong Pinta, Defense Minister Israel Katz said. "Nattapong came to Israel from Thailand to work in agriculture, out of a desire to build a better future for himself and his family," Katz said. He was "brutally murdered in captivity by the terrorist organisation Mujahideen Brigades," the minister charged.
The Mujahideen Brigades is an armed group close to Hamas ally Islamic Jihad that Israel has also accused over other deaths of hostages seized from Kibbutz Nir Oz near the border.
The military said Nattapong's family and Thai officials had been notified of the operation to recover his body. Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura said the country was "deeply saddened" by his death.