Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 140 people across Gaza in the space of 24 hours, local health officials said as some Palestinians fear their plight is being forgotten as attention shifts to the war between Israel and Iran.
At least 40 died as a result of Israeli gunfire and airstrikes on Wednesday, Gaza’s health ministry said. The deaths included the latest in near daily killings of Palestinians seeking aid in the three weeks since Israel partially lifted a total blockade on the territory.
Medics said separate airstrikes on homes in the Maghazi refugee camp, the Zeitoun neighbourhood and Gaza City killed at least 21 people, while five others were killed in an airstrike on an encampment in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Fourteen more people were killed in Israeli fire at crowds of Palestinians awaiting aid trucks brought in by the United Nations along the Salahuddin road in central Gaza, medics said.
Israel’s military said individuals approached troops in the area in a manner that posed a threat to its forces, despite warnings that the area is an active combat zone.
Regarding other strikes, it said it was “operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities” while taking “feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.
Some in Gaza expressed concern that the latest escalations in the war between Israel and Hamas that began in October 2023 would be overlooked due to the new Israel-Iran conflict.
“People are being slaughtered in Gaza, day and night, but attention has shifted to the Iran-Israel war. There is little news about Gaza these days,”said Adel, a resident of Gaza City.
“Whoever doesn’t die from Israeli bombs dies from hunger. People risk their lives every day to get food, and they also get killed and their blood smears the sacks of flour they thought they had won,” he told Reuters.
Israel is now channelling much of the aid into Gaza through a new US-Israeli-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which uses private US security and logistics firms and operates a handful of distribution sites in areas guarded by Israeli forces.
Israel has said it will continue to allow aid into Gaza, home to more than 2 million people, while ensuring it doesn’t get to Hamas. Hamas denies seizing aid, saying Israel uses hunger as a weapon.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, called the current system for distributing aid “a disgrace and a stain on our collective consciousness”.
The war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 died that day and 251 hostages were taken.
Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed nearly 55,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, displaced almost all the territory’s residents, and caused a severe hunger crisis.
The World Food Programme called on Wednesday for a big increase in food distribution in Gaza, saying that the 9,000 metric tons it had dispatched over the last four weeks inside Gaza represented a “tiny fraction” of what was needed.
“The fear of starvation and desperate need for food is causing large crowds to gather along well-known transport routes, hoping to intercept and access humanitarian supplies while in transit,” the WFP said in a statement.
“Any violence resulting in starving people being killed or injured while seeking life-saving assistance is completely unacceptable,” it added.
Palestinians in Gaza have been closely following Israel’s air war with Iran, long a major supporter of Hamas.
“We are maybe happy to see Israel suffer from Iranian rockets, but at the end of the day, one more day in this war costs the lives of tens of innocent people,” said 47-year-old Shaban Abed, a father of five from northern Gaza. “We just hope that a comprehensive solution could be reached to end the war in Gaza, too. We are being forgotten.”
