Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid, unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that was heading to Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip. AP
The officially private GHF began operations on 26 May after Israel enforced a complete blockade, halting all supplies into the Gaza Strip for more than two months. The nearly three-month blockade, recently eased with Israel allowing only a trickle of aid through the GHF, has sparked warnings of imminent famine.
Since those operations began and through 7 July, United Nations rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the agency had recorded “615 killings in the vicinity of the GHF sites.” Another 183 people had been killed “presumably on the routes of aid convoys” carried out by UN and other aid organisations, she told reporters in Geneva.
“This is nearly 800 people who have been killed while trying to access aid,” she said, adding that “most of the injuries are gunshot injuries.”
GHF operations, which effectively sidelined a vast UN aid delivery network in Gaza, have been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people waiting to collect rations.
The GHF, which highlighted on Thursday that it had distributed “more than 69 million meals” to date, has denied that fatal shootings have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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