Israeli strikes kill at least 29 Gazans awaiting aid, say Palestinian officials
At least 29 people were killed in Gaza on Thursday while waiting for aid in two separate Israeli attacks, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Palestinian health officials said eight people were killed in an airstrike on an aid distribution centre in Al-Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Later the same day at least 21 people are understood to have been killed and more than 150 wounded by Israeli gunfire into a crowd of people awaiting aid trucks at a roundabout in northern Gaza, the health ministry added.
Israeliâs military has denied attacking aid centres and described the reports as âfalseâ.
It said: âAs the IDF assesses the incident with the thoroughness that it deserves, we urge the media to do the same and only rely on credible information.â
Nine people were also reported to have been killed on Thursday by an Israeli missile which hit a house in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza, according to Palestinian medics.
Residents said Israeli aerial and ground bombardments persisted overnight across the enclave, including in Rafah in the south, where more than a million displaced people are sheltering.
The latest reports of deaths in the scramble for aid in Gaza came just weeks after 112 people were believed to have been killed and 760 injured as residents approached an aid truck seeking food in Gaza City on 29 February.
Witnesses said Israeli forces opened fire as the crowds swarmed around the trucks and more people were killed and injured as the trucks tried to move out of the area.
The IDF denied that there had been a strike on the convoy. A spokesperson said Israeli tanks had fired warning shots to disperse a crowd around an aid convoy in Gaza, after seeing that people were being trampled.
The war in Gaza was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli towns on 7 October last year which saw 1,200 people killed and 253 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures.
Since then Israel has launched air, sea and ground assaults on Gaza which are understood to have killed more than 31,000 people and wounded over 71,500, according to the Gazan health authority.
Efforts to reach a ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist militant Hamas have so far failed.
The conflict has displaced most of Gazaâs 2.3 million population and the lack of aid entering the territory has been described as a âmanmadeâ disaster by the EUâs foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Mr Borrell told the UN Security Council on Tuesday: âWe are now facing a population fighting for their own survivalâŚStarvation is being used as a war arm and when we condemned this happening in Ukraine, we have to use the same words for what is happening in Gaza.â
The UN has warned at least 576,000 people in Gaza â one quarter of the population â are on the brink of famine and global pressure has been growing on Israel to allow more access.
Israel has denied obstructing aid deliveries into Gaza and instead blamed failures by aid agencies for delays and accused Hamas of diverting aid.
Hamas has denied this and says Israel uses hunger as a weapon in its military offensive.
A ship carrying aid is currently approaching Gaza, where the US military plans to set up a dock to enable distribution of up to two million meals a day.
