• Thousands of Palestinians gather in distribution sites daily with the hope of receiving food rations
• UNICEF warns about the drought conditions developed in the besieged enclave
Gaza City: Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency said that 31 Palestinian aid search engines were among at least 60 people killed on Friday by Israeli forces, the last of a series of mortal incidents near the help distribution sites.
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said AFP That five people were killed while waiting for help in the Southern Gaza Strip and another 26 near a central area known as the Netzarim corridor, a strip of land controlled by Israeli that divides the Palestinian territory.
Thousands of Palestinians have gathered there daily with the hope of receiving food rations, since the famine is coming through Gaza after more than 20 months of war.
The Israeli army said that his troops in the Netzarim area had first shot “warning” suspicious “that approached them.
When individuals continued advancing, “a plane hit and eliminated suspects to eliminate the threat,” the army said.
Similar incidents have occurred regularly in that area since the end of May, when the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation backed by the United States and Israel opened its distribution centers, since Israel facilitated a two -month help block.
The operations of the Private Foundation in Gaza have been tarnished by chaotic scenes. The UN agencies and the main help groups have refused to cooperate with him about concerns that was designed to address Israeli military objectives.
In another part of the territory on Friday, Bassal said that 14 people were killed in two separate strikes in the central city of Deir El-Balah, and another 13 in three Israeli air attacks in the area of the city of Gaza.
One of those strikes, which killed three people, hit a telephone load in the city, Bassal said.
In South Gaza, two people were killed by Israeli shots “in two separate incidents, he added.
Israeli restrictions in the media in Gaza’s strip and difficulties in accessing some medium areas AFP You cannot independently verify tolls and details provided by the Civil Defense Agency.
‘Israel uses hunger as a weapon’
In a statement on Friday, the Hamas Group, which says that Israel is using hunger as a weapon against the population of Gaza, accused Israel of systematically pointing to the Palestinians who seek food help throughout the enclave.
Meanwhile, UNICEF, the UN Children’s Agency, warned of drought conditions that develop in Gaza.
“Children will begin to die of thirst … only 40 percent of drinking water production are still functional,” said UNICEF spokesman James Elder, to journalists. “We are well below emergency standards in terms of drinking water …”
UNICEF also reported a 50 percent increase in children from six months to five years admitted to the treatment of malnutrition from April to May in Gaza, and half a million people hungry.
Elder, who was recently in Gaza, said he had many testimonies of injured women and children while trying to receive food help, including a child who was injured by a tank and then died of his wounds.
The lack of public clarity about when the sites, some of which are in combat areas, are open is causing massive events of victims, he added.
The Al-Quds brigades said Friday that he had signed up for an Israeli military post in the southern city of Khan Yunis, claiming the “dead and wounds” Israeli troops “as a result. Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not comment.
Much of Khan Yunis, like vast areas in Gaza, is under the orders of Israeli military evacuation.
Posted in Dawn, June 21, 2025
