Since May, some 800 Palestinians have been killed at aid sites, most run by controversial US- and Israel-backed GHF, UN says
\nNews Agency
\nGaza Strip
\nIsrael is engineering a \u201ccruel and Machiavellian scheme to kill\u201d in Gaza, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees says, as the world body reports that since May, some 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid. \u201cUnder our watch, Gaza has become the graveyard of children [and] starving people,\u201d UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X on Friday.
\nPeople in Gaza have \u201cno way out\u201d, he said. \u201cTheir choice is between 2 deaths: starvation or being [shot] at.\u201d Lazzarini was reacting to the Israeli military\u2019s killing of 15 people, including nine children and four women, as they waited in line for nutritional supplements in the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Thursday.
\nHis comments came on another bloody day in the Strip, with medical sources reporting that 45 people had been killed \u2013 11 of them near a GHF-run aid centre in Rafah.
\nThe controversial US- and Israel-backed GHF has effectively sidelined Gaza\u2019s vast UN-led aid delivery network since it started operations in May, after Israel eased a more than two-month total blockade on the Strip.
\nSince then, 819 Palestinians have been killed while waiting for food, the spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday. He said 634 were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites \u2013 of which there are four for the entire enclave \u2013 and 185 were killed close to other humanitarian aid convoys, including some run by the UN.
\nEarlier in the day, Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said between May and July 7, the UN had recorded 798 killings near aid points in Gaza.
\nIsraeli soldiers and US contractors working with GHF have admitted to shooting unarmed Palestinians gathering for food, according to separate recent reports by Israeli outlet Haaretz and The Associated Press news agency.
\nReporting from the UN in New York, Al Jazeera\u2019s Gabriel Elizondo said that Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), had given a briefing in which he reported the situation in Gaza was \u201cthe worst that he has ever seen it\u201d.
\nSkau, who had just returned from his fourth trip to Gaza, had said the WFP had enough food to feed the entire population of Gaza for two months, but the trucks were not being let in.
\nInstead, Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to rely on the GHF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since May, some 800 Palestinians have been killed at aid sites, most run by controversial US- and Israel-backed GHF, UN says News Agency Gaza Strip Israel is engineering a \u201ccruel and Machiavellian scheme to kill\u201d in Gaza, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees says, as the world body reports that since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-489923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n