Peace and Justice Post

The Health Ministry said at least five Palestinians were killed on Sunday morning while seeking aid

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, June 8, 2025

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that Israeli attacks killed at least 106 Palestinians and wounded 393 as Israeli forces continue to pound the Strip with airstrikes and shoot desperate Palestinians seeking aid.

The Health Ministry said that at least five Palestinians were killed and 123 were injured while seeking aid at distribution points run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

According to The Cradle, at least one Palestinian was killed by Israeli gunfire at a distribution site at the Netzarim Corridor, which separates northern Gaza from the rest of the Strip. Four were reported killed when Israeli tanks, gunboats, and snipers opened fire near a site in the southern city of Rafah. Other reports said the death toll in Rafah rose to 13.

According to Reuters, the Israeli military acknowledged that it opened fire on Palestinians near the site in Rafah, claiming its forces “had directed warning shots at a group that was moving towards soldiers and deemed a threat to them.”

The Health Ministry said that the total number of Palestinians killed en route to aid sites since the GHF began operating has reached 115, and another 1,100 have been injured.

Heavy Israeli airstrikes and shelling were also reported across Gaza. According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, at least 31 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes, mainly in the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, and in Gaza City and Jabalia in the north.

Also on Sunday, the Israeli military claimed that it had found and identified the body of Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, who it alleges was killed in a May 13 bombing outside the European Hospital in Khan Younis. Israel alleged that tunnels were underneath the facility, which Hamas has previously denied. Sinwar took over as Hamas’s leader following the killing of his brother, Yahya Sinwar, in October 2024.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said that since Israel resumed its genocidal war on March 18, at least 4,603 Palestinians have been killed, and 14,186  were injured. The numbers account for dead and wounded Palestinians brought to hospitals and morgues.

Since October 7, 2023, the ministry’s death toll has reached 54,880, and the number of wounded has climbed to 126,227, figures that don’t account for thousands missing and presumed dead under the rubble or indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege.

Andre Damon, wsws.org, 5 June 2025

@Andre__Damon

In the week since Israel launched food distributions under the auspices of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), Israeli forces have turned the aid distributions into killing fields almost every day.

In a statement published Tuesday, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that over the past week, over 600 Palestinians have been killed or injured in Israeli attacks on crowds at the food distribution points.

Prior to the launch of the US-Israeli “aid” operation, humanitarian and human rights groups, including the UN, warned that the scheme was merely a means to lure Gaza’s remaining population to the south, where they could be trapped in concentration camps in preparation for the US-Israeli plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza by expelling its population.

It has since emerged that the purpose of the “aid” centers is even more sinister: they are launching points not only for indiscriminate massacres of aid-seekers, but for what appear to be targeted assassinations of members of the crowd. Rather than being a humanitarian lifeline, they are killing fields.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces carried out yet another massacre near an aid distribution site in Rafah, killing 27 people and injuring 90. On Monday, 3 people were killed and dozens were wounded in nearly the exact same circumstances. This followed a massacre on Sunday in which 30 people were killed and 170 were wounded.

In its report, the Euro-Med Monitor stated that, “According to testimonies and information collected by Euro-Med Monitor’s field researchers, Israeli army snipers deliberately targeted starving civilians with direct gunfire, mostly to the head, despite no apparent threat to Israeli forces.”

One survivor told the monitor, “At around 3:50 a.m. today, an Israeli quadcopter flew over and photographed the civilian crowd. Then, the army opened fire from a crane in the area. I personally carried three people who had been shot in the head. Most of the injuries were to the head. People came looking for food to ease their hunger, but they went back dead or wounded.”

In another testimony, A. B., 38, told the Euro-Med Monitor team, “Around 5:45 a.m., we managed to enter the center, and I was able to get an aid package. On my way out, I met a woman in her 40s who said she couldn’t continue forward and that she and her children were suffering from hunger and poverty. I gave her my package and returned to try to get another one, but there was nothing left. A quadcopter was overhead, broadcasting insulting remarks: ‘You animals, go away, the supply is out.’”

He continued, “As I was leaving and nearing the chute’s exit, I saw a child crying out loudly, ‘Mom, get up, Mom, get up.’ I went closer and found the woman I had given my package to lying in a pool of blood. She was dead,” he said. “A group of young men and I carried her outside and placed her in an ambulance. I accompanied her son to the hospital. On the way, along the sea road, I saw seven bodies lying on the side of the road.”

Aid-seekers attempting to access food are forced to wait in long lines before being subjected to facial recognition scans. The testimony presented by the Euro-Med Monitor could indicate that the ongoing massacres are not random killing sprees, but that the facial recognition scans are being used for targeted assassinations at the aid distribution sites.

On Wednesday, the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza – the fifth time it has done so. Fourteen other members of the Security Council voted for the ceasefire, which called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “catastrophic” and called for the lifting of restrictions on food aid.

“Israel has a right to defend itself, which includes defeating Hamas and ensuring they are never again in a position to threaten Israel,” said U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Sheato. “In this regard, any product that undermines our close ally Israel’s security is a non-starter.”

Sheato openly endorsed the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” declaring, “We instead urge the UN and NGOs to support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to help it safely deliver aid without being diverted by Hamas.” In an open embrace of the massacres as the GHF aid centers, she said the foundation is delivering aid “consistent with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”

The UN vetoed a similarly worded UN Security Council resolution under the Biden administration, using essentially the same rationalization.

Riyad Monsour, Palestine’s representative to the UN, told the Security Council, “the engineered starvation that has brought an entire civilian population, 2 million people, among them 1 million children, to the edge of famine and then used aid to lure them and confine them to an extremely limited area of the Gaza Strip, clearly to facilitate their expulsion and annexation.”

Last week, Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian office, told reporters in a briefing that “One hundred percent of the population is at risk of famine,” and that Gaza is the “hungriest place on earth.”

He added that Israel’s ongoing blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza has made the UN’s efforts to feed the population “one of the most obstructed aid operations, not only in the world today but in recent history.”

On Wednesday, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said in a statement that he is “shocked” by the extent of malnutrition in Gaza, saying, “I’m seeing teenage boys in tears, showing me their ribs.”

He condemned Israel’s daily massacres of aid-seekers, saying, “Imagine knowing there’d be a massacre, but being so desperate to feed your family that you still go.”

Gaza’s health ministry said Wednesday that 95 Palestinians had been killed in the last 24-hour period and that 440 had been injured. Its official Gaza death toll has risen to 54,607 killed with 125,341 injured since October 7, 2023.

People watch as smoke billows following an Israeli strike in Jabalia, Gaza on May 25, 2025.

(Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)

“These are not isolated accounts; they point to a systemic failure and a horrifying moral collapse,” said the executive director of Breaking the Silence.

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, May 25, 2025

Israeli soldiers have “systematically” used Palestinians as human shields during the 19-month assault on the Gaza Strip, The Associated Press reported Saturday, citing Palestinian civilians and members of the Israel Defense Forces who described engaging in the practice that is banned under international humanitarian law.

“Orders often came from the top, and at times nearly every platoon used a Palestinian to clear locations,” APreported, citing the account of an unnamed Israeli officer.

One Palestinian man, Ayman Abu Hamadan, said Israeli soldiers dressed him in army fatigues, attached a camera to his forehead, and forced him to enter homes to ensure they were clear of bombs and militants. Abu Hamadan said he was passed from unit to unit for over two weeks.

“Soldiers stood behind him and, once it was clear, entered the buildings to damage or destroy them, he said,” AP reported. “He spent each night bound in a dark room, only to wake up and do it again.”

Nadav Weiman, executive director of Breaking the Silence—an anti-occupation group founded by former Israeli soldiers—told AP that “these are not isolated accounts; they point to a systemic failure and a horrifying moral collapse.”

Israeli officials frequently justify attacks on homes, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure by alleging that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilian population as human shields. But Israeli forces have long been accused of using detained Palestinians as human shields, both during and prior to the current assault on Gaza.

According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, “Over the years, the military practiced an official policy of using Palestinians as human shields, ordering them to carry out military activities that put their lives in jeopardy: Palestinians were forced to remove suspicious objects from roads, tell other Palestinians to come out and surrender themselves, physically shield soldiers while they fired, and more.”

“In most cases, no one was held accountable,” the group said.

Earlier this year, an anonymous Israeli officer wrote in a column for Haaretz that “in Gaza, human shields are used by Israeli soldiers at least six times a day.”

“Today, almost every platoon keeps a ‘shawish,’ and no infantry force enters a house before a ‘shawish’ clears it,” the officer wrote. “This means there are four ‘shawishes’ in a company, twelve in a battalion, and at least 36 in a brigade. We operate a sub-army of slaves.”

In response to AP‘s reporting, the IDF told the Jerusalem Post that it would only investigate the claims in the story “if further details are provided.”

The reporting came as Israel continued with its large-scale ground offensive and aerial assault in Gaza, where the entire population is facing a dire hunger crisis due to Israel’s monthslong siege.

On Sunday, according toReuters, “Israeli military strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip… including a local journalist and a senior rescue service official.”

Hours earlier, an Israeli strike on a home in Khan Younis killed nine children of a Nasser Hospital pediatrician and badly injured her husband while she was at work.

“Targeting families in the still-standing buildings: distinguishable sadistic pattern of the new phase of the genocide,” Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, wrote in response to the deadly strike.