Israeli forces killed and wounded dozens of Palestinians on Sunday in the northern Gaza Strip as crowds gathered near a border crossing where United Nations trucks were entering the enclave with humanitarian aid, according to the Gaza health ministry and local health workers.
A convoy of 25 trucks from the World Food Program, a United Nations agency, was crossing into Gaza and “encountered large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies,” the agency wrote in a statement on Sunday. It said, “As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire.”
The episode was the latest in a string of episodes in which Gazans lost their lives as they gathered to get food. Hunger and desperation have gripped Palestinians in Gaza during Israel’s nearly two-year military campaign against Hamas.
The shooting on Sunday took place “despite assurances from Israeli authorities” that conditions for humanitarian operations would improve, “including that armed forces will not be present nor engage at any stage along humanitarian convoy routes,” the World Food Program said.
“People were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation,” the agency said. “This terrible incident underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which humanitarian operations are forced to be conducted in Gaza.”
The latest violence took place near the Zikim crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel. More than 60 people were killed according to the health ministry and Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
A field hospital operated by the Palestine Red Crescent Society in northern Gaza was flooded with gunshot victims, receiving two of the dead and more than 100 wounded, said Nebal Farsakh, a spokeswoman for the Red Crescent.
The Israeli military said in a statement that soldiers had fired “warning shots” after thousands of Gazans gathered in the area and that they had opened fire to “remove an immediate threat.” It did not specify the nature of the threat.
The Israeli military also said that the reported number of casualties did “not align” with its own initial review, and that it was continuing to examine what had happened.
Chaos has dominated aid distribution in Gaza amid widespread hunger in the enclave.
According to witnesses and the Israeli military, Israeli soldiers have repeatedly opened fire near large crowds of desperate Palestinians heading to sites run by American contractors for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a controversial private organization conceived by Israelis and backed by Israel and the United States.
A day before the shooting near the border Sunday, at least 32 people were killed when Israeli soldiers began opening fire near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites in southern Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The shooting on Sunday took place not near a foundation site but at a location where supplies were expected to enter from Israel.
Shadi al-Nazli, 27, said he went to the border area on Sunday morning after hearing a rumor that trucks carrying flour would be entering through the Zikim crossing. The zone is known to be dangerous, as Israeli soldiers sometimes open fire if Palestinians get too close to the border, he said.
Palestinians frequently rush to seize aid from trucks as soon as they begin emerging from the Israeli side, Mr. al-Nazli said. Israeli soldiers shoot in an effort to keep the Palestinians away, but the desperate crowds are frequently undeterred, he said.
On Sunday, he said that “there were massive crowds of people, most of whom had spent the night there.” After the trucks crossed, the situation quickly deteriorated, he said.
The Israeli military later in the day warned Palestinians to leave the populated areas of northern Gaza and parts of Gaza City that have been subject to previous evacuation orders, describing them as “combat zones.”
That followed an Israeli military order to Palestinians earlier in the day to evacuate parts of the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, one of the few areas in the territory where Israel has not conducted major ground operations during its military campaign against Hamas.
Many Palestinians had sought refuge around Deir al-Balah after being displaced several times from other parts of the enclave, because it has remained largely intact during the devastating 21-month Israeli campaign. The order to leave further shrinks the areas where the roughly two million residents of Gaza can live in relative safety and caused panic among Palestinians afraid that Israel was set to expand its ground invasion.
It was not clear if the evacuation notice portended an imminent expansion of Israel’s military incursion or was meant as a pressure tactic to wrest concessions from Hamas in the sluggish negotiations for a cease-fire.
More than 57,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, have been killed during the war, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. The war was ignited by a Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others taken hostage.
Many in Deir Al-Balah have been trying to find alternative accommodation, said Abdelhalim Awad, a local bakery owner.
“These are already areas packed with tent encampments,” Mr. Awad said. “People are wondering where else they can even go.”
Mr. Awad’s home is just north of where the Israeli military has ordered people to leave, and his bakery is in the evacuation zone. He said he feared the area where he lives may be next.
“This might be part of the negotiations — or the army might invade tomorrow,” he said. “There’s a lot of fear. We don’t know what will happen.”
Israeli ground forces have largely refrained from operating in a patch of central Gaza, including Deir al-Balah. The military has been worried that doing so could endanger the remaining hostages who were taken in 2023 and are believed to be held there, according to Israeli analysts.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an Israeli organization that advocates for the hostages and their families, expressed alarm over the military’s announcement.
“Can anyone promise us that this decision will not come at the cost of losing our loved ones?” the group said in a statement, adding, “For the hostages, this is not a ‘card’ in negotiations, but a tangible and immediate danger to their fate.”
About 50 captives remain in Gaza, of whom about 20 are believed to be alive, according to the Israeli government. Hamas officials have said that their captors are under orders to kill the hostages should Israeli troops close in on them.
Myra Noveck , Gabby Sobelman and Ephrat Livni contributed reporting.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
Isabel Kershner, a Times correspondent in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.
The post Israeli Troops Kill Dozens Seeking Food Near Border, Gazan Officials Say appeared first on New York Times.
