The Israeli occupation army committed a new massacre on Sunday morning in southern Gaza, killing at least 31 aid seekers and injuring 120 others near a US-run aid distribution site in the west of Rafah.
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO), the death toll from Israeli attacks on aid seekers at US aid distribution sites has risen to 39 in less than a week.
More than 220 others have been injured since the establishment of these distribution sites in southern Gaza.
The GMO said that the Israeli army turned aid distribution sites from humanitarian aid points into traps for mass killings, affirming that ‘what is happening is a systematic use of aid as a weapon of war to extort starving civilians’.
The GMO called on the UN and its Security Council to shoulder their legal responsibilities towards Gaza and have the border crossings reopened for the entry of aid without restrictions.
The GMO also called for urgently forming an independent international committee to investigate and document Israel’s massacres against aid seekers.
It said the Israeli army is using the new mechanism for distributing aid for mass killings and as a tool for forced displacement of Gaza residents.
Its statement quoted Dr Munir al-Bursh, the director general of the ministry, as condemning ‘the international silence regarding the massacres being committed against the starving residents of the Gaza Strip’.
He also indicated that hospitals in Gaza are facing dire conditions due to a severe shortage of medicines and other supplies, adding that Israel is preventing 3,000 trucks with medical supplies in the Egyptian city of El Arish from crossing into the enclave.
Al-Bursh also accused Israel of ‘deliberately spreading infectious diseases and epidemics’ through the blockade.
Reda Abu Jazar said her brother was among those killed as he waited to collect food in Rafah yesterday.
‘Let them stop these massacres, stop this genocide. They are killing us,’ she said as Palestinian men gathered for funeral prayers.
Arafat Siyam said his brother had left at 11pm (21:00 GMT) the previous evening to collect food for his wife and eight children from the same distribution site in Rafah.
Siyam accused the Israeli military of killing his brother. ‘This is unfair. What they are doing is unfair,’ he said.
Witnesses in the southern Gaza city of Rafah spoke about the chaotic scenes near the aid distribution point that killed dozens of aid seekers.
‘The Israelis opened fire on us. We ran to get our hands on some food, we were met with gunfire, drone bombs and shells,’ one said. ‘We are starving to death, just trying to get our hands on some food.’
Another Gaza resident recounted a father’s desperate attempt to feed his family and his ‘starving children’. ‘He was trying to get some flour to feed his children. He’s gone but came back carried on a stretcher. Trump alleges it is a safe humanitarian zone, but it is all lies. They flock us towards their fire.’
Sameh Hamuda, a displaced resident from northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya city, says he has walked from Gaza City and spent the night with relatives in a tent near Rafah before heading to the aid centre at dawn to wait among a crowd of people.
‘They began distributing aid, but suddenly quadcopter drones opened fire on the people, and tanks started shooting heavily. Several people were killed right in front of me,’ the 33-year-old said. ‘I ran and survived. Death follows you as long as you’re in Gaza.’
Abdullah Barbakh, 58, described ‘chaos, screaming, and overcrowding’ at the scene. ‘The army opened fire from drones and tanks. Chaos broke out, and the area was filled with martyrs and wounded. I don’t understand why they call people to the aid centres and then open fire on them,’ he said. ‘What are we supposed to do?’
Gaza doctor succumbs to his wounds
A Palestinian doctor has succumbed to the wounds he sustained in Israel’s airstrike that killed nine of his children in the southern Gaza Strip last week.
Director General of Gaza’s Health Ministry Muneer al-Boursh announced Dr Hamdi al-Najjar’s death yesterday, saying he joined his nine children who were killed before.
‘An entire family – all gone, except for the grieving mother and her wounded child,’ he added.
The Israeli aerial assault hit the Najjar family’s home in the city of Khan Younis on May 23rd, when the mother, Dr Alaa al-Najjar was working in the emergency room at the Nasser Hospital.
Hours later, the charred bodies of her nine children, Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gebran, Eve, Rival, Sayden, Luqman and Sidra who were aged between just a few months old and 12, arrived at the same hospital.
Only one of the Najjar family’s ten children, 11-year-old Adam, survived along with his father, Hamdi, who has now also died.
