Israel on Thursday killed at least 56 Palestinians, including 6 people who were waiting for aid at the distribution sites of the notorious Gaza Human Rights Foundation (GHF), an aid system backed by the US and operated by the Israeli military.
According to Gaza's health ministry, Israel has killed more than 500 Palestinians at aid distribution sites since the GHF began operations last month.
Rights groups and the UN has 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 has 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 internationally established aid distribution systems with the GHF.
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.
Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday said Gaza was in a "catastrophic situation of genocide" and urged the European Union to immediately suspend its cooperation deal with Israel.
The comments represent the strongest condemnation to date by Sanchez, an outspoken critic of Israel's war on the Palestinians, who is one of the first European leaders, and the most senior, to call out the genocide.
Speaking ahead of an EU summit in Brussels, Sanchez mentioned an EU report which found "indications" Israel was breaching its rights obligations under the cooperation deal, which forms the basis for trade ties.
The text cited Israel's blockade of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory, the high number of civilian casualties, attacks on journalists and the massive displacement and destruction caused by the genocidal war.
'Death is sometimes kinder than this torture'
Alaa al-Najjar was tending to wounded children at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip on May 23, when the news came through: the home where her own 10 children were staying had been targeted by an Israeli air strike.
The paediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family's house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative told AFP, only to be met with every parent's worst nightmare.
"When she saw the charred bodies, she started screaming and crying," said Ali al-Najjar, the brother of Alaa's husband.
Nine of her children were killed, their bodies burned beyond recognition, according to relatives.
The tenth, 10-year-old Adam, survived the strike but remains in critical condition, as does his father, Hamdi al-Najjar, also a doctor, who was also at home when the strike hit.
Both are in intensive care at Nasser Hospital.
When the body of her daughter Nibal was pulled from the rubble, Alaa screamed her name, her brother-in-law recounted.
The following day, under a tent set up near the destroyed home, the well-respected paediatric specialist sat in stunned silence, still in shock.
Around her, women wept as the sounds of explosions echoed across the Palestinian territory, battered by more than a year and a half of war.
"I couldn't recognise the children in the shrouds," Alaa's sister, Sahar al-Najjar, said through tears. "Their features were gone."
"It's a huge loss. Alaa is broken," said Mohammed, another close family member.
According to medical sources, Hamdi al-Najjar underwent several operations at the Jordanian field hospital.
Doctors had to remove a large portion of his right lung and gave him 17 blood transfusions.
Adam had his arm severely wounded and suffers from severe burns across his body.
"I found my brother's house like a broken biscuit, reduced to ruins, and my loved ones were underneath," Ali al-Najjar said, recalling how he dug through the rubble with his bare hands alongside paramedics to recover the children's bodies.
Now, he dreads the moment his brother regains consciousness.
"I don't know how to tell him. Should I tell him his children are dead? I buried them in two graves."
"There is no safe place in Gaza," he added with a weary sigh. "Death is sometimes kinder than this torture."
Israel has so far killed at least 56,077 Palestinians in Gaza, with more than half being women and children. Israel has also targeted and killed hundreds of journalists, health care workers and aid workers. Israel has also targeted hospitals, refugee camps, schools and residential complexes, causing mass casualties of civilians, mostly children.
(With inputs from AFP)
