Alwaght- 560 Palestinians seeking to get food and humanitarian aid have so far been killed by the Israeli regime, Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative said in a post on X.
"560 is the number of the civilian Palestinians killed by the Israeli army while they were trying to get food and humanitarian aid in Gaza city in addition to 1523 injured," his post read.
The Israeli crimes against aid-seekers comes as Tel Aviv has holding a tight siege against Gaza since October 7, denying the civilians of the enclave food, water, medicine, electricity, and communication.
Israel has attacked several humanitarian aid convoys and crowds around them since October 7.
At least 19 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli attack targeting civilians who were waiting for aid southeast of Gaza City on Sunday, Aljazeera cited Gaza’s Ministry of Health and its Media Office as saying.
“The Israeli occupation commits a massacre, killing 19 and injuring 23 civilians while thousands of citizens were waiting for flour and aid near Al-Kuwait roundabout,” Gaza’s media office said in a statement on Saturday.
It said that the Israeli army and tanks opened fire with machine guns “towards the hungry people who were waiting for bags of flour and aid in a place far from posing any danger to the occupation”.
Mahmud Basal, the spokesman for the Civil Defence Department in Gaza, said there had been “heavy shooting at civilians” and victims had been transported to a nearby Ahli Arab Hospital.
"There were very serious injuries, some of whom were injured by shrapnel. The reality is tragic, difficult and challenging,” he told Aljazeera.
On February 29, Israeli forces opened fire on hundreds of Palestinians as they gathered south of Gaza City waiting to receive humanitarian aid in what is known as the “flour massacre”, leaving 118 dead and 760 wounded, according to the Health Ministry in the enclave.
Two days later, in a new massacre, the Israeli forces shot at people waiting for food distribution, killing 100 and injuring over 700.
The Israeli crimes come amid looming famine.
Half of Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing “catastrophic” hunger, with famine projected to hit the north of the territory by May unless there is urgent intervention, a United Nations-backed food assessment warned on Monday.
But aid distribution has become increasingly dangerous and sometimes lethal.
Last Tuesday, 23 Palestinians were killed, and several others were injured by Israeli bombing that targeted Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid in the northern Gaza Strip.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Saturday during a visit to the Rafah crossing that the line of blocked aid trucks stuck on Egypt’s side of the border with the Gaza Strip while Palestinians face starvation on the other side is a “moral outrage”.
