UN reports nearly 800 deaths near Gaza aid hub in the past 6 weeks, humanitarian convoys
The UN Human Rights Office said Friday that it has recorded at least 798 homicides in aid sites in Gaza over the past six weeks, with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) supported by the U.S. and Israel and other rescue groups approaching the convoy.
GHF used private U.S. security and logistics companies to bring supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing Israeli alleged UN-led system that allowed Hamas-led militants to plunder aid intended for civilians. Hamas denied the charges.
The European Commission said on Monday there is no evidence that Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid from Gaza.
After hundreds of Palestinian civilians tried to reach the GHF’s aid hub in areas where Israeli forces operated, the United Nations called the aid model “inherent insecurity” and violated humanitarian standards of justice.
“[From May 27] Until July 7, we have recorded 798 kills near the Humanitarian Foundation in Gaza, including 615 kills, and about 183 on the aid convoy route,” Ravina Sharmdasani, spokesman for the United Nations Office of Human Rights (OHCHR), told Geneva Media Profile.
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GHF began distributing food parcels in Gaza at the end of May after Israel held an 11-week aid lockdown, telling Reuters that the UN figures were “false and misleading.” It repeatedly denies a fatal incident at its location.
A GHF spokesman said: “The fact is that the deadliest attack on the aid site is related to the United Nations convoy.”
The Israeli army said it is reviewing recent massive casualties and is trying to minimize friction between the Palestinians and the IDF (IDF) by installing fences and signs and opening up other routes.
Ohchr said its numbers are based on a range of sources, such as information from hospitals, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs and their partners in the Gaza Strip.
Most injuries are gunshot wounds: United Nations
Sharmdasani said that since May 27, most of the Palestinian injuries at the aid distribution center recorded by the OHCHR were gunshot wounds.
“Our concerns about the atrocities committed and the risks of further atrocities are at risk of people queuing for basic supplies like food,” she said.
After GHF asserted that the OHCHR numbers were false and misleading, Sharmdasani said: “The blanket fire we worry about is not helpful – it needs to be investigated why people were killed while trying to get aid.”
Israeli and Hamas negotiators are holding talks with Qatar’s mediators with a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release agreement. But a senior Israeli official said Wednesday it was impossible to get another week or two deal.
Israel has repeatedly stated that its troops operate near relief aid sites to prevent supply of militants fighting in the war triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Hamas.
“The incident took place after the injury to civilians arriving at the distribution facility and was thoroughly inspected at the Southern Command,” an IDF spokesperson said in a statement.
GHF said Friday it provided more than 70 million meals to hungry Gaza people in five weeks, and other humanitarian groups “almost all the aid was robbed by Hamas or criminal gangs.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has previously listed violent aid plunders, while the UN World Food Programme said last week that most trucks carrying food aid were intercepted by “hungry civilian communities.”
There was a 21-month period in Israel’s military movement that saw a sharp shortage of food and other essential supplies, during which most of the enclaves had been reduced to rubble, with most of the 2.3 million residents displaced.
