The collapse of water systems in Gaza is threatening the territory with devastating drought as well as hunger, Unicef has warned, as medics reported that Israel had killed more desperate Palestinians seeking aid.
On Friday at least 24 people waiting for aid were killed by Israeli fire in central Gaza, according to local health authorities, in addition to other deaths by airstrikes.
Marwan Abu Nasser, the director of al-Awda hospital, in the town of Nuseirat, said his staff had dealt with 21 injured and 24 dead people.
“The injuries were extremely severe, most of them in the chest and head. There were women, children and young people among the injured because the people who went to receive the aid … came from all walks of life,” Abu Nasser said.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks while trying either to reach aid distribution points managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a secretive US- and Israel-backed organisation that recently started to hand out food in the territory or, more recently, to offload the limited number of UN and commercial vehicles carrying flour and some other basics.
Such reports are difficult to confirm independently but appear corroborated in many details by interviews conducted with witnesses by the Guardian.
Khaled al-Ajouri, 33, of the Jabaliya refugee camp, said he had travelled early in the morning in the hope of getting supplies from the aid trucks.
“I decided to stay a bit away to protect myself. I convinced myself that I was in a safe area. Suddenly … there were explosions and I was hit in my leg and chest,” Ajouri said.
There were also reports of other casualties on Friday in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, with at least 12 people killed in an airstrike on a house belonging to the Ayyash family in the central town of Deir al-Balah.
Mohammad al-Mughayyir, the director of medical supply at the civil defence agency in Gaza, told AFP: “Forty-three martyrs have fallen as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombardment on the Gaza Strip since dawn today, 26 of whom were waiting for humanitarian aid.”
Israeli military officials said on Friday that warplanes had attacked 300 “terror targets” in Gaza during the week, including individual militants, weapons caches and positions used to attack Israeli forces.
One of the strikes killed a senior militant in the territory who had helped bury the bodies of two hostages seized during the attack led by Hamas into southern Israel in October 2023 that triggered the conflict, they said.
Israeli military officials say troops have fired at “suspects” they claim pose a threat to them.
James Elder, a Unicef spokesperson, told reporters in Geneva that he had many testimonials of women and children being injured while trying to receive food aid, including a young boy who was wounded by a tank shell and later died of his injuries.
“There have been instances where information [was] shared that a [distribution] site is open, but then it’s communicated on social media that they’re closed, but that information was shared when Gaza’s internet was down and people had no access to it,” Elder said.
The GHF releases information about opening hours of sites primarily on Facebook, which many in Gaza cannot access.
Food has become extremely scarce in Gaza since a tight blockade on all supplies was imposed by Israel throughout March and April, threatening many of the 2.3 million people who live there with a “critical risk of famine”.
Since the blockade was partly lifted last month, the UN has tried to bring in aid but has faced major obstacles, including rubble-choked roads, Israeli military restrictions, continuing airstrikes and growing anarchy. Many shipments have been stopped by ordinary Palestinians in Gaza and offloaded.
There is also an acute shortage of fuel, which is needed for pumps on boreholes and Gaza’s sole remaining desalination plant. None has been allowed into Gaza since the collapse of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in March.
Elder added: “We are way below emergency standards in terms of drinking water for people in Gaza. Children will begin to die of thirst … Just 40% of drinking water production facilities remain functional.”
Fuel reserves built up during the pause in the 20-month war are now almost exhausted, aid officials said.
Most of Gaza’s wastewater treatment plants, sewage systems, reservoirs and pipes have been destroyed. In March, Israel cut off power supplies to the main desalination plants, a vital source of water for Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel hopes the GHF will replace the previous comprehensive system of aid distribution run by the UN, which Israeli officials claim allowed Hamas to steal and sell aid.
UN agencies and major aid groups, which have delivered humanitarian aid across Gaza since the start of the war, have rejected the new system, saying it is impractical, inadequate and unethical. They deny there is widespread theft of aid by Hamas.
On Wednesday, the GHF said it had provided more than 30m meals to the people of Gaza “safely and without incident” since it began operating last month.
Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostage during the 7 October 2023 attack, of whom they still hold 53.
The death toll in Gaza since the war broke out has reached more than 55,600, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry.
