In Gaza, more Palestinians are killed while waiting for food aid
At least 325 people in Gaza were killed by Israeli forces while trying to reach food over the past week, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. That figure includes 24 people killed on Saturday in various parts of the territory, according to health officials and morgues reached by NPR.
The deadly search for food is happening despite Israeli assurances of a humanitarian pause in attacks to let more aid in as deaths from malnutrition soar in Gaza and starvation grips the territory.
Israel’s military says its troops have only fired warning shots in some of these incidents when asked for comment, including on Wednesday when more than 90 people seeking aid were killed while trying to get sacks of flour off trucks as they rolled into Gaza near a border area where soldiers are.
Aid restrictions by Israel have drawn international condemnation. U.N.-backed experts on hunger say there’s a famine unfolding now in Gaza.
Israel began allowing air drops of aid by countries and more trucks into Gaza last weekend, but aid agencies say it’s still far from enough. Nearly all the food has been looted off trucks by armed gangs and hungry crowds before it can reach warehouses for distribution, according to the U.N. World Food Program.
The crisis prompted President Trump to dispatch two U.S. officials to visit Gaza on Friday with Israeli troops, where they saw a food distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has millions in funds from the U.S. and is overseen by Israel.
During a ceasefire earlier this year, United Nations agencies had safely delivered aid and were largely able to do so even during the first six months of the war until Israel took full control of Gaza’s border with Egypt, where much of the aid had come in from.
Israel says its restrictions on aid are to pressure Hamas and prevent its fighters from benefiting from it. International aid groups and U.N. agencies have called the restrictions collective punishment, and say their aid is being looted by armed gangs, some of whom Israel has openly backed to undermine Hamas.
Fallout from U.S. envoy’s visit
After accompanying the president’s senior envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, to that site, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee praised GHF’s efforts as “an incredible feat.”
But a U.N. report published Thursday recorded 859 deaths near GHF sites from May 27 to July 31, with hundreds more along food convoy routes.
In a statement, Hamas said Witkoff’s brief visit to Gaza on Friday was a “pre-planned show designed to deceive public opinion.”
Yahia Youssef, who was seeking aid, told the Associated Press he had helped three gunshot victims at one GHF location Saturday and had seen several other people bleeding from their wounds. “It’s the same daily episode,” he said.
The GHF’s media office, in response to eyewitness accounts, told the AP that “nothing (happened) at or near our sites.”
A famine is unfolding
Health officials in Gaza reported Saturday seven more deaths from malnutrition-related causes within the last 24 hours, including a child.
Aid airdrops have also continued in Gaza, with several European nations this week joining a Jordanian-led coalition that has coordinated these aerial deliveries.
In a post on X on Saturday, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, noted a single truck can bring in far more aid than an airdrop, many of which land in military zones or in the sea. He called them “highly costly, insufficient and inefficient,” adding that if there is “political will to allow airdrops … there should be similar political will to open the road crossings.”
Israeli domestic pressures
Israel’s military did not immediately comment on Saturday’s strikes or gunfire near aid locations in Gaza. But the Israeli Army’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, had warned in a statement issued Friday that “combat will continue without rest” as will pressure on Hamas if hostages taken in the group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel are not released.
In Tel Aviv, the families of hostages still held inside Gaza protested, urging the Israeli government to instead intensify efforts for a ceasefire for their loved ones’ release.
Some family members met with Witkoff, Trump’s Mideast envoy, during a visit he made to Tel Aviv. They said he had told them that Trump intends to seek a comprehensive hostage deal that would see Hamas agree to disarm and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commit to ending the war in Gaza. Both Hamas and Netanyahu have publicly rejected these terms in previous rounds of negotiations.
A U.S. group will finance Gaza church’s reconstruction
Meanwhile, a U.S. Jewish organization has begun providing financial assistance to Christians in Gaza. The American Jewish Committee is donating $25,000 for the restoration of Holy Family Catholic Church, one of two churches in the enclave, with funds to be managed by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York.
The building was recently seriously damaged from deadly Israeli strikes that hit the church, where Christian Palestinians have sought refuge in the war.
This donation comes as more Jewish leaders in the U.S. — as well as dozens of Democratic senators — call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Anas Baba in Gaza City and Jason DeRose in Washington contributed reporting.
Transcript:
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
We’re going to hear about Gaza now, where hunger is rampant and images of emaciated children have brought forth a groundswell of international pressure on Israel to allow in more aid. Israel is, at least for now, letting countries continue to airdrop aid into the territory as well as allowing in more trucks. We’re joined now by NPR’s international correspondent Aya Batrawy, who’s been tracking the situation in Gaza. Aya, thanks for being with us.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Thank you, Scott.
SIMON: What do we know about the situation on the ground a week after more aid was allowed in?
BATRAWY: Well, there’s still a very desperate search for food. Markets are bare. The prices are really, really high for whatever is available, and everyone is basically relying on aid for survival. But you know, Scott, this aid isn’t coming in at scale yet. Aid groups say those airdrops you mentioned, they can only bring in about a fraction of what trucks can. And they’re not necessary because there’s so much food sitting right outside Gaza just waiting for Israeli permission to enter. The U.N. World Food Programme says Israel’s only permitting half the number of trucks that they’re requesting to enter. And U.N.-backed experts who do track hunger worldwide said this week there’s now mounting evidence of famine unfolding in Gaza. Hospital records in Gaza show 90 deaths from malnutrition in July. Many of these are babies with mothers who were too malnourished to breastfeed them and who can’t find formula.
SIMON: Is any of the aid that’s been entering Gaza this past week actually reaching people?
BATRAWY: So, the short answer, Scott, is that the aid that’s entered isn’t reaching warehouses, and it’s being looted either by armed gangs or really hungry crowds, and people are risking their lives to get these bags of flour off aid trucks because you can’t even find bread anymore. But many are being shot dead by Israeli forces near the border as the trucks roll in, according to survivors and our own reporting. Israel says their troops have only fired warning shots at the crowds, but I want you to have a listen to this video filmed from inside a U.N. car on a relief mission in Gaza this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Check your door’s locked. Check your door’s locked.
BATRAWY: So as the convoy rolls into southern Gaza, they’re met by thousands of desperate, starving people, including many women and children. They’re waiting for the aid that’s supposed to enter. Then you see what looks like gunshots fired into the sand just feet away from the crowd that is crouching on the ground. And then you can hear a U.N. aid worker say this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED AID WORKER: Stay away. Stay away. It’s kids. It’s children. Children. Stay there.
BATRAWY: So then the crowd starts getting up and moving and appears to use these U.N. cars for cover to keep getting to those aid trucks. So not only is the U.N. unable to deliver food, people are forced to choose between starving or risking their lives like this to get food. And this past week alone, at least 260 people were try – were killed trying to get food aid in Gaza.
SIMON: We just mentioned with Don Gonyea, the rift, the difference of opinion between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump. What are we seeing in the separation between the two?
BATRAWY: Well, you know, you did mention that there’s this growing pressure and global outrage over the hunger in Gaza. Israel’s Western allies are saying it’s facing growing isolation. And so President Trump did send his Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Israel, and he went into Gaza yesterday with the Israeli military. He visited a food distribution site that’s run by a group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF. This group has received millions of dollars from the U.S. It is overseen by Israel and its distribution system has been deadly for Palestinians. And so while there’s no indication that Trump is breaking with Netanyahu or even pushing him to strike a deal with Hamas to end the war and free hostages, he did shift his tone yesterday about GHF. He said it was a, quote, “shame” that it wasn’t more effective.
SIMON: NPR’s international correspondent Aya Batrawy. Thank you so much for your reporting.
BATRAWY: Thank you, Scott.
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