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 distribution sites, the UN said Friday.
The comments came as the IDF ordered some Gaza City residents to evacuate ahead of operations there, and Hamas’s civil defense agency reported 18 people killed in Gaza on Friday, including 10 while waiting for aid in southern Gaza. It was not immediately clear if the aid seekers were killed in the vicinity of a GHF site.
United Nations rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the agency had recorded “615 killings in the vicinity of the GHF sites” since the GHF began operations on May 26 and through July 7.
Another 183 people had been killed “presumably on the routes of aid convoys” carried out by the UN and other aid organizations, 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.”
The UN human rights office said it based its figures on sources such as information from hospitals in Gaza, cemeteries, families, the Strip’s Hamas-run health authorities, NGOs and its partners on the ground.
GHF, which denies that deadly incidents have occurred at its sites, told Reuters the UN figures were “false and misleading.”
“The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys,” a GHF spokesperson said. “Ultimately, the solution is more aid. If the UN [and] other humanitarian groups would collaborate with us, we could end or significantly reduce these violent incidents.”
Shamdasani, the UN human rights spokeswoman, said in response that “it is not helpful to issue blanket dismissals of our concerns — what is needed is investigations into why people are being killed while trying to access aid.”
The IDF said Friday that it had issued instructions to troops in the field “following lessons learned” after reports of deadly incidents at GHF distribution facilities.
The military said it “allows the American civilian organization 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.”
“As part of this effort, IDF forces have recently worked to reorganize the area through the installation of fences, signage placement, the opening of additional routes, and other measures,” it said.
The army stressed that “following incidents in which harm to civilians who arrived at distribution facilities was reported, thorough examinations were conducted,” adding those incidents were “under review by the competent authorities in the IDF.”
GHF, which seeks to circumvent Hamas in the distribution of aid, has faced harsh criticism from the UN and other aid organizations which charge that it fails to meet the needs of Gaza’s population. Gazans have reported near-daily incidents in which groups trying to reach GHF facilities are shot at by Israeli forces, leading to mass casualties.
Israel, which accuses Hamas of hoarding aid, has also accused the terror group of attacking Gazan aid seekers near GHF sites and falsifying death tolls. However, Israel has also acknowledged that “several� Palestinian civilians have been killed near GHF aid distribution sites.
GHF commenced operations in May as Israel lifted a nearly three-month aid blockade on Gaza, amid a renewed offensive there that seeks to take over 75% of the Strip.
Six top members of Hamas’s naval commando forces were killed in a series of operations as part of the ongoing offensive, the IDF and Shin Bet said Friday.
The military said the operations targeting the commandos were led by the Israeli Navy, the Military Intelligence Directorate and the IDF Southern Command, as well as the Shin Bet.
According to the IDF, the six operatives had advanced sea-borne attacks against Israeli troops and civilians, and some had participated in planning the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.
The IDF and Shin Bet named the operatives as: Ramzi Salah, the naval forces commander in northern Gaza; Jamal al-Baba, the naval forces commander in central Gaza; Ratab Abu Sahiban, the naval forces commander in Gaza City; Omar Abu Jalala, the naval forces commander in Khan Younis; Mohammed Qashta, the naval forces commander in Rafah; and Ahmad Ali, the successor to Abu Sahiban as commander of the naval forces in Gaza City.
The IDF announced Salah’s death earlier this month, in a strike on a cafe in Gaza City that reportedly killed 24 people
Hamas’s civil defense agency said 10 people were shot dead by the IDF Friday while they were waiting for supplies in the Al-Shakoush area northwest of southern Gaza’s Rafah. There have been regular reports of deadly fire on aid seekers in the area.
The civil defense agency reported six more people killed in four separate Israeli air strikes in the area of Khan Younis, also in Gaza’s south.
Two drone strikes around Gaza City, in the north, killed two more people, according to the Hamas agency.
It also reported Friday that five people were killed the previous night in an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Jabalia al-Nazla, in northern Gaza.
The IDF did not immediately comment on the reported strikes. The military says it takes steps to mitigate harm to civilians, including by use of aerial intelligence and precision munitions, and accuses Hamas of embedding itself in civilian infrastructure, including schools.
A Palestinian speaking to AFP from southern Gaza on condition of anonymity reported ongoing attacks and widespread devastation, with Israeli tanks seen near Khan Younis.
“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 the south of Khan Younis, said the witness.
The IDF said in a statement that soldiers were operating in the area, dismantling “terrorist infrastructure sites, both above and below ground,” and seizing “weapons and military equipment.”
Meanwhile, the IDF issued an evacuation warning to Palestinians residing in two blocks of Gaza City before the military attacks there “with very great force.”
“In light of the Hamas terror organization using civilian areas for terror activities, the IDF will attack the area with very great force. For your safety, evacuate the area immediately,” said the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson Col. Avichay Adraee in a post on X. He instructed Palestinian civilians to head south and “avoid returning to dangerous areas.”
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, more than 57,000 people have been killed in the Strip since the war there began on October 7, 2023.
The Hamas-provided death toll cannot be independently verified and does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the Hamas onslaught that sparked the war. The onslaught killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.