Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday that Israeli forces killed at least 140 Palestinians and wounded 560 over the previous 24-hour period as the daily US-backed massacres continue while the world is focused on the Israel-Iran war.
The ministry said another four bodies of Palestinians killed in previous attacks were recovered. “There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the streets, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” the ministry wrote on Telegram.
Among the dead were Palestinians killed by Israeli forces while seeking aid, which has become a daily occurrence in Gaza. According to Al Jazeera, at least 29 Palestinians waiting for aid trucks were gunned down on Wednesday near the Netzarim Corridor, which separates northern Gaza from the rest of the Strip.
“Palestinian lives have been so devalued. It is now the routine to shoot & kill desperate & starving people while they try to collect little food from a company made of mercenaries,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, wrote on X.
Lazzarini also strongly criticized the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has been operating aid distribution sites near where Palestinians are frequently gunned down by Israeli forces. “Hundreds of people have been reported killed since the ‘Gaza Humiliation Foundation’ started operating just over three weeks ago,” he said. “A lame, medieval, and lethal system that is deliberately harming people under the camouflage of ‘humanitarian aid.'”
The UNWRA chief said it was a “war crime” to “invite starving people to their death.” Palestinians have continued to make the perilous journey to GHF sites despite the risk of coming under IDF attack and being killed, demonstrating their desperation for food.
Heavy Israeli airstrikes and shelling also continued to pound Gaza on Wednesday. According to Al Jazeera, attacks included strikes on tents in the al-Mawasi camp in southern Gaza on the coast, killing eight people, including a woman and two children. A strike in the Maghazi camp in central Gaza killed 10, including a husband and wife and their children.
The Health Ministry said that the latest violence has brought the death toll since October 7, 2023, to 55,637 and the number of wounded to 129,880. Studies have shown that the Health Ministry’s numbers are a significant undercount, and estimates that factor in indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege and destruction of all of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure bring the death toll into the hundreds of thousands.
