Deir Al-Balah: Israeli strikes and gunfire in the Gaza Strip killed at least 46 Palestinians overnight into Wednesday morning, most of them among crowds seeking food, local hospitals said.
The dead include more than 30 people who were killed while seeking humanitarian aid, according to that treated dozens of wounded people.
The Israeli military didn’t immediately comment on any of the strikes, but says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, because the group’s militants operate in densely populated areas.
The deaths came as the United Kingdom announced that it would recognize a Palestinian state in September, unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, following a similar declaration by France’s president. Israel’s foreign ministry said that it rejected the British statement.
The Shifa hospital in Gaza City said that it received 12 people who were killed Tuesday night when Israeli forces opened fire towards crowds awaiting aid trucks coming from the Zikim crossing in northwestern Gaza.
Thirteen others were killed in strikes in the Jabaliya refugee camp, and the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, the hospital said.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, the Nasser hospital said it received the bodies of 16 people who it says were killed Tuesday evening while waiting for aid trucks close to the newly-built Morag corridor, which separates Khan Younis from the southernmost city of Rafah.
The hospital received another body for a man killed in a strike on a tent in Khan Younis, it said.
The Awda hospital in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp said that it received the bodies of four Palestinians who it says were killed Wednesday by Israeli fire close to an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, in the Netzarim corridor area, south of the Wadi Gaza.
In addtion, seven Palestinians, including a child, have died of malnutrition-related causes in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said on Wednesday. A total of 89 children have died of malnutrition since the war began in Gaza. The ministry said that 65 Palestinian adults have also died of malnutrition-related causes across Gaza since late June, when it started counting deaths among adults.