Israeli gunfire and air strikes killed a total of 140 people across Gaza in 24 hours, health officials said. Forty Palestinians were killed on Wednesday, as Israeli forces shelled and use gunfire in several areas of Gaza, the enclave's health ministry said. More were feared dead.
Fourteen people were killed in Israeli fire at crowds of displaced Palestinians awaiting UN aid lorries brought along the Salahuddin road in central Gaza, medics said, in what has become the near daily killing of Palestinians seeking aid in the three weeks since Israel partially lifted a blockade on the territory.
Dozens more were wounded in violence across Gaza, it added. There was no comment from the Israeli military.
Wednesday's violence follows an incident on Tuesday evening in which more than 30 Palestinians were reportedly killed as they sought food in the north-west of Gaza city, according to Wafa.
A correspondent for the news agency said Israeli soldiers fired at crowds at an aid distribution point.
Earlier on Tuesday, another 59 Palestinians were killed in Khan Younis when Israeli tanks and drones fired on people waiting for aid lorries carrying food to arrive, authorities and witnesses told The National.
Gazans are facing severe shortages of food, fuel and clean water after 20 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
In early March, Israel imposed a total blockade on aid deliveries to Gaza amid a deadlock in truce negotiations with Hamas. It only partially eased the blockade in late May.
Since then, a US and Israel-backed aid organisation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been distributing supplies in Gaza, but its operations have been marred by hundreds of deaths, and chaotic scenes.
Deadly shootings have occurred in areas where Palestinians have gathered at GHF sites in the hope of being fed.
UN agencies and major humanitarian groups have refused to co-operate with GHF over concerns it was designed to serve Israeli military objectives.
In a statement on Tuesday, GHF said that “to date, not a single incident has occurred at or in the surrounding vicinity of GHF sites nor has an incident occurred during our operating hours”.
Elsewhere in Gaza on Wednesday, the Israeli military bombed a home in the Maghazi refugee camp, killing 10 people, including a couple and their children, Wafa said.
Thirteen people were killed in other attacks, including eight in the bombing of a house in Al Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza city. More people were reported wounded when Israeli aircraft bombed the tents of displaced people in Al Attar, Khan Younis.
The Israeli military carried out large-scale bombing operations on homes east of Gaza city and Jabalia in northern Gaza in the morning, Wafa said.
The Gaza Health Ministry said on Wednesday that 140 Palestinians were killed and 560 injured in the previous 24 hours, raising the overall death toll in the war to 55,637 with 129,880 injured.
The war began after Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took about 250 hostage in an attack on October 7, 2023.
