DEIR AL BALAH/GAZA STRIP: Israeli forces killed four aid seekers traveling on Sunday through a military zone south of Gaza City — an area regularly used by Palestinians trying to reach a food distribution point, a hospital and witnesses said.
The deaths add to the growing toll of Palestinians killed while seeking food, as parts of the Gaza Strip plunge into famine and Israel’s military ramps up activity in northern Gaza ahead of a planned offensive to seize its largest city.
Al-Awda Hospital and two eyewitnesses told The Associated Press that the four Palestinians were killed when troops opened fire on a crowd heading to a site run by the Israeli-backed American contractor Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, in the Netzarim corridor area. The incident hundreds of meters (yards) away from the site came as Israel’s military ramps up activity in northern Gaza ahead of a planned offensive to seize its largest city.
“The gunfire was indiscriminate,” Mohamed Abed, a father of two from the Bureij refugee camp, said, adding that while many fled some people fell to the ground after being shot.
Abed and Aymed Sayyad, another aid seeker among the crowd, said troops opened fire when a group near the front of the crowd pushed forward toward a distribution site before its scheduled opening.
