Keystone-SDA
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), supported by Israel and the USA, announced on Wednesday the death of 20 people waiting for help. She accused individuals armed to have provoked “a stampede”, a version disputed by Palestinian sources.
(Keystone-ATS) “According to the information we have, 19 of the victims have been trampled on and another was stabbed in a chaotic and dangerous stampede caused by agitators in the crowd,” said the GHF.
The Civil Defense of Gaza also reported the death of 20 people on Wednesday, but claimed that they had succumbed to “Israeli occupation fire” following a crowd movement among people in search of food in the Al-Tina area, southwest of Khan Younès, near a help distribution center “.
Several children killed
A doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younès, in the south of the Gaza Strip, announced earlier that he received the bodies of nine people, “including several children”, killed in this sector after shooting from the Israeli army and GHF security personnel.
The GHF began its operations in Gaza at the end of May and regularly repeats that its distribution operations inside its centers take place without incident.
Israel prevents the media from working
Given the restrictions imposed on the media by Israel, which besieged the Gaza Strip, and the difficulties of access to the field, AFP is not able to independently check the balance sheets and assertions of the different parties.
Solicited by AFP, the Israeli army said “inquire”.
Nearly 900 people killed
On Tuesday, the United Nations said that 875 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip when they were trying to find enough to eat since the GHF operations.
Israel had relaxed at the end of May the hermetic blockade imposed for two months on the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli army has been at war with Hamas since the attack on the Islamist movement on October 7, 2023 in Israel, the last episode of the very long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The UN and the main humanitarian organizations refuse to work with the GHF, accused of violating humanitarian principles.
“A trap”
In the courtyard of the Nasser hospital where the remains of people killed were brought near the distribution site, Abdoullah Alian who attended the stage explained that “this aid (was) trap”.
“They shoot us, throw bombs and spray us with gas (tear gas) in the eyes,” he said.
“What is happening on the ground confirms the intentions and plans of the occupation (Israel) to maintain and prolong its military control in the Gaza Strip,” said a member of the Hamas political bureau, Bassem Naïm.
“No progress” for a truce
In addition, a senior Hamas official as well as two Palestinian sources close to the indirect negotiations with Israel denied information published by Israeli media on Wednesday that talks for a truce in Gaza progressed.
“No progress has so far been made in the indirect negotiations in progress in Doha between the delegations of Hamas and Israel,” one of the Palestinian sources told AFP.
Israel and Hamas started indirect discussions on July 6 for a 60 -day truce associated with a release of hostages. But the two parties accuse each other of stopping the talks.
At least 58,573 Palestinians, mainly civilians, were killed in the Israeli military campaign, according to data from the Ministry of Health of the Government of Hamas in Gaza, deemed reliable by the UN.
