Israel on Saturday attacked starving Palestinians who gathered near aid distribution points set up by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, killing at least 30 people in Rafah and one person in the Netzarim Corridor. The attack also wounded more than 120 Palestinians.
In a statement, the Government Media Office in Gaza said the killings "reflect the nature of these areas as mass death traps, not humanitarian relief points."
“We confirm to the entire world that what is happening is a systematic and malicious use of aid as a tool of war, employed to blackmail starving civilians and forcibly gather them in exposed killing points, managed and monitored by the occupation army and funded and politically covered by the occupation and the US administration, which bears full moral and legal responsibility for these crimes,” the statement read.
The GMO said that at least 39 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's attacks on the newly established US-backed aid sites in less than a week. This does not include the updated death toll of 18 more people killed later on Saturday.
Condemning “the new massacre of the starving people in Rafah," the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said it was “a genocide with international complicity and American participation.”
"What happened constitutes a full-fledged war crime,” the leftist group said.
“We demand urgent international and Arab intervention to stop this ongoing massacre and impose strict accountability mechanisms on the criminal occupation, in addition to immediately breaking the siege,” it added.
The PFLP had earlier warned the desperate Palestinians that aid points set up by Israel and US were "death traps."
On the other hand, the 'Palestinian Center for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons' on Friday raised an alarm regarding Palestinians vanishing from the aid sites set up by the Israeli army after Israel's three-month long blockade of humanitarian assistance pushed the entire population of Gaza into a famine like situation, starving at least 57 people to death, mostly children including infants.
The centre echoed GMO's and PFLP's remarks that the Israeli army's aid distribution points are a "deliberate trap for civilians" as they are placed deep inside dangerous military zones.
"These areas are death zones," the centre said in a statement, describing the strategy as a grave violation of international humanitarian law.
United Nations and multiple aid agencies have refused to corporate with the US-backed foundation, saying it has been helping Israel in its genocidal war against Gaza.
Meanwhile, the UN on Friday issued a stark warning regarding the crisis in Gaza, calling it the "hungriest place on earth" and repeated that Palestinians are facing a famine.
The UN also said its mission to help starving Palestinians is the most obstructed in recent history. Israel has been accused of weaponisng starvation, which amounts to a war crime.
According to the UN, tonnes of aid are waiting at the border but only a trickle of it is being allowed inside by Israel. The UN had earlier stated that Israeli army's restrictions have made it difficult for the aid workers to reach the Palestinians, even after aid entering the territory.
Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has so far killed at least 54,381 Palestinians, mostly women and children. This includes at least 60 people killed in different airstrikes across Gaza in less than 24 hours on Saturday in Israel's intensified genocidal operations in the territory.
Israel has also killed aid workers, healthcare workers and journalists in targeted attacks. More than 200 journalists have been killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023.
