DEIR AL BALAH: Israeli troops opened fire Saturday toward crowds of starving Palestinians seeking food from distribution hubs run by a U.S.- and Israeli-backed group in southern Gaza, killing at least 32 people, according to witnesses and hospital officials.
The two incidents occurred near hubs operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. In other violence, 11 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, health officials said.
The GHF launched operations in late May with backing from the U.S. and Israel. The United Nations had condemned Israel's "weaponisation of food" against the Palestinians after a three-month-long blockade of humanitarian assistance, which was partially lifted only to replace the established aid distribution systems with the GHF. Rights groups and the UN had refused to cooperate with the GHF, slamming it as a "death trap" for Palestinians and accusing it of aiding Israel in its genocidal war in Gaza.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, called the GHF an "abomination" that has put Palestinians' lives at risk, while a spokesman for the UN human rights office, Thameen Al-Kheetan, condemned the "weaponisation of food" in the territory.
Nearly 900 Palestinians have been killed so far in Israeli attacks near aid distribution sites since the GHF started operations.
In the occupied West Bank, meanwhile, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, visited a Christian Palestinian village that was recently attacked by Israeli settlers and harshly criticized the violence.
'Indiscriminate fire'
Most of Saturday's deaths occurred as Palestinians massed in the Teina area, around three kilometers (2 miles) away from a GHF aid distribution center east of the city of Khan Younis.
Mahmoud Mokeimar, an eyewitness, said he was walking with masses of people — mostly young men — toward the food hub. Troops fired warning shots as the crowds advanced, before opening fire toward the marching people.
"It was a massacre … the occupation opened fire at us indiscriminately," he said. He said he managed to flee but saw at least three motionless bodies lying on the ground, and many other wounded fleeing.
Akram Aker, another witness, said troops fired machine guns mounted on tanks and drones. He said the shooting happened between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.
"They encircled us and started firing directly at us," he said. He said he saw many casualties lying on the ground.
The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said it received 25 bodies, along with dozens wounded.
Seven other people, including one woman, were killed in the Shakoush area, hundreds of meters (yards) north of another GHF hub in Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah, the hospital said. The toll was also confirmed by the health ministry.
Dr. Mohamed Saker, the head of Nasser's nursing department, said it received 70 wounded people. He told The Associated Press that most of the casualties were shot in their heads and chests.
"The situation is difficult and tragic," he said, adding that the facility lacks badly needed medical supplies to treat the daily flow of casualties.
Meanwhile, Fares Awad, head of the Health Ministry's ambulance and emergency service in northern Gaza, said two people were killed in Gaza City when an airstrike hit a tent in a camp sheltering displaced families. There were no further details on the target of the strike.
In central Gaza, the Awda-Nusseirat Hospital said nine people were killed in another airstrike. The hospital and Hamas-run Interior Ministry said Omar Aqel, a local police official, was killed. Two children, including an infant, and five women — all relatives of Aqel — were also among the dead.
Humanitarian crisis
Gaza's more than 2 million Palestinians are living through a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, and the territory is teetering on the edge of famine, triggered by Israel's continuous blockade of humanitarian assistance amid the genocidal war.
Distribution at the GHF sites has often been chaotic. Boxes of food are left stacked on the ground inside the centers and, once opened, crowds charge in to grab whatever they can, according to witnesses and videos released by GHF itself.
In videos obtained recently by the AP from an American contractor working with GHF, contractors are seen using tear gas and stun grenades to keep crowds behind metal fences or to force them to disperse. Gunshots can also be heard.
Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has so far killed at least 58,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Israel has also targeted and killed hundreds of journalists, health care workers and aid workers.
Israel and Hamas have been holding ceasefire talks in Qatar in recent weeks. But international mediators say there have been no breakthroughs in the talks.
West Bank church attack
In the occupied West Bank, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visited a Palestinian Christian village where residents say extremist Israeli settlers set fire to the Church of St. George on July 9.
Huckabee, an evangelical Christian who is normally strongly supportive of Israel, harshly condemned the attack.
"To commit an act of sacrilege by desecrating a place that is supposed to be a place of worship — it's an act of terror and it's a crime," he said.
The West Bank has experienced a surge in settler violence since the war in Gaza broke out. Palestinians say Israeli security forces have done little to stop the violence, and few settlers have been punished.