MORE than 70 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces across Gaza, including people who were waiting for aid trucks, health officials have said.
Around 100 Palestinians seeking aid were injured in an attack which left 29 dead early on Wednesday in Salah al-Din Street near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
Another Israeli air strike on a home in the Zeitoun neighbourhood south of Gaza City killed eight people, leaving multiple other people wounded, according to medical sources.
Eight more people were killed, and others injured, including a woman and two children, in Israeli strikes on tents of displaced people in al-Mawasi camp in Gaza’s south, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Meanwhile, a further 10 people, including a husband, wife and children from a single family, were killed in another Israeli air strike on the Maghazi camp in central Gaza, local reports have said.
The Israeli military told the Reuters news agency that it was looking into the reported deaths of people waiting for food aid.
The bodies of 20 people shot dead in northern Gaza by Israeli forces while waiting for aid trucks were left on the street for five days before Civil Defence paramedics from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs were given approval by Israeli officials to recover them.
Ahmed Ghaben told Al Jazeera about the death of a relative saying that his nephew wasn’t a resistance fighter and that he simply went to get a bag of flour.
He said: “My nephew went to bring his children a bag of flour, but he was brought back a lifeless body, as you can see, a martyr.
“He left 14 family members. He went [to get aid] due to hunger. He wasn’t a resistance fighter. He went to get a bag of flour.”
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said, “It’s very clear that Israeli forces are targeting civilians who only went to get bags of flour or boxes of food.
“Eyewitnesses say the soldiers used a variety of weapons, including drones and tanks. Snipers who have been deployed in nearby hills have also been gunning down the civilians.
“The Israeli military claims these hungry crowds are a security threat, but these claims have not been substantiated with clear evidence.”
Experts have warned that Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza and restrictions on the entry of aid have put Gaza, which is home to some two million Palestinians, at risk of famine.
The UN's human rights chief, Volker Turk, condemned Israel's conduct around the aid centres this week.
Presenting his annual report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, he said Israel's “means and methods of warfare are inflicting horrifying, unconscionable suffering on Palestinians in Gaza”.
He added: “Israel has weaponised food and blockaded lifesaving aid.
“I urge immediate, impartial investigations into deadly attacks on desperate civilians to reach food distribution centres.
“Disturbing, de-humanising rhetoric from senior Israeli government officials is reminiscent of the gravest of crimes.”
