875 people in Gaza have died 'while trying to get food', UN confirms
Topics: News
Rachael Davis
Featured Image Credit: BASHAR TALEB / Contributor/Getty Images
Topics: News
The war in Gaza, which began on 7 October 2023 following a Hamas attack on Israeli citizens that killed around 1,200 people, has now seen the deaths of more than 58,000 Palestinians.
While more recent figures are hard to come by, it was estimated in October 2024 that at least 74% of casualties in Gaza were civilians.
Attacks on Gaza include aerial bombardment along with on-the-ground activity, and in recent weeks the latter has resulted in the deaths of almost 900 Gazans as they attempted to get food.
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According to the UN human rights office, most of these deaths are connected to private aid hubs run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which itself is a private US-Israeli organisation that has leapfrogged other humanitarian efforts to provide support in Gaza.
"As of July 13, we have recorded 875 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food; 674 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites," said Thameen Al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
Some 201 more were killed whilst trying to find food 'on the routes of aid convoys or near aid convoys' operated by UN and UN-partnered initiatives.
The GHF first began operations in southern Gaza on May 27 this year, with the killings at these sites beginning soon after.
On July 14 at around 9am, there were reports that the Israeli military had shelled and fired shots at Palestinians hoping to get food from a GHF site in north-western Rafah.
In that attack, two Palestinians died and at least a further nine were injured.
A hospital run by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Rafah reported on July 12 that it was treating more than 130 patients, with the majority of those having been shot and 'responsive individuals' saying they had been attacked while attempting to read a food distribution site.
Several injured Palestinians from the July 14 attack are being treated at that hospital.
"Our teams on the ground - UNRWA (UN agency for Palestinian refugees) teams and other United Nations teams - have spoken to survivors of these killings, these starving children included, who were shot at while on their way to pick up very little food," said Juliette Touma, UNRWA director of communications.
While speaking via video link from Amman, Ms Touma said Israel's near-total blockade of Gaza was causing babies' deaths from severe malnutrition.
"We've been banned from bringing in any humanitarian assistance into Gaza for more than four months now," she said, noting that that child malnutrition rates had significantly increased since the blockade began on March 2.
She continued: "Medicine and food are going to soon expire if we're not able to get those supplies to people in Gaza who need it most, among them one million children who are half of the population of the Gaza Strip.”