94 Palestinians killed in Gaza, including 45 people waiting for aid, authorities say

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) – Airstrikes and shootings killed 94 Palestinians in Gaza overnight, including 45 who were attempting to get much-needed humanitarian aid, hospitals and the Health Ministry said Thursday.

Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the strikes.

Five people were killed while outside sites associated with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the newly-created, secretive American organization backed by Israel to feed the Gaza Strip’s population, while 40 others were killed waiting for aid in other locations across the Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, human rights organization Amnesty International issued a report claiming Israel and the GHF have “militarized” the aid distribution system as a starvation tactic against Palestinians.

“Israel has continued to use starvation of civilians as a weapon of war against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip and to deliberately impose conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as part of its ongoing genocide,” the report said.

The organization had previously accused Israel of committing genocide in a report last December. Israel has adamantly rejected the allegations, and is challenging such claims at the International Court of Justice.

Dozens of people were killed in airstrikes that pounded the Strip Wednesday night and Thursday morning, including 15 people killed in strikes that hit tents in the sprawling Muwasi zone, where many displaced Palestinians are sheltering. A separate strike on a school in Gaza City sheltering displaced people also killed 15 people.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has passed 57,000 since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023. The toll includes 223 people who had been missing but have now been declared dead. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its death count but says that more than half of the dead are women and children.

The deaths come as Israel and Hamas inch closer to a possible ceasefire that would end the 21-month war.

Trump said Tuesday that Israel had agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept the deal before conditions worsen. But Hamas’ response, which emphasized its demand that the war end, raised questions about whether the latest offer could materialize into an actual pause in fighting.

The Israeli military blames Hamas for the civilian casualties because it operates from populated areas. The military said it targeted Hamas militants and rocket launchers in northern Gaza that launched rockets toward Israel on Wednesday.

Amnesty condemned both Israel and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which the U.S. and Israel have tapped to take over aid distribution in Gaza from a network led by the United Nations.

The Amnesty report said Israel has “turned aid-seeking into a booby trap for desperate starved Palestinians” through GHF’s militarized hubs. The conditions have created “a deadly mix of hunger and disease pushing the population past breaking point,” it said.

Israel’s foreign ministry denounced the Amnesty report, saying the organization has “joined forces with Hamas and fully adopted all of its propaganda lies.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 500 Palestinians have been killed at or near GHF distribution centers over the past month, including five overnight between Wednesday and Thursday in Khan Younis. The centers are guarded by private security contractors and located near Israeli military positions. Palestinian officials and witnesses have accused Israeli forces of opening fire at crowds of people moving near the sites.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages.

The war has left the coastal Palestinian territory in ruins, with much of the urban landscape flattened in the fighting. More than 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been displaced, often multiple times. And the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, leaving hundreds of thousands of people hungry.

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Chehayeb reported from Beirut.