“This is a figure as of June 27. Since then … there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), told reporters in Geneva on Friday.
The OHCHR reported that 509 of the 613 people were killed near GHF distribution points. The Gaza Health Ministry has put the number of deaths at more than 650 and those wounded as exceeding 4,000.
The GHF began distributing limited food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of deliveries which the UN says is neither impartial nor neutral, as killings continue around the organisation’s sites, which rights groups have slammed as “human slaughterhouses”.
Mahmoud Basal, a civil defence spokesperson in Gaza, stated that they “recorded evidence of civilians being deliberately killed by the Israeli military”.
“More than 600 Palestinian civilians were killed at these centres,” he continued, adding, “Some were shot by Israeli snipers, others were killed by drone attacks, air strikes or shootings targeting families seeking aid.”
The UN, humanitarian organisations and other NGOs have repeatedly slammed the GHF for its handling of aid distribution and the attacks around its distribution sites.
More than 170 humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty International, on Tuesday demanded the immediate closure of the GHF, accusing it of facilitating attacks on starving Palestinians.
The NGOs added Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” open fire on civilians attempting to access food.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which was carrying out aid distribution for decades before the GHF, has called for investigations into the killings and wounding of Palestinians trying to access food through the GHF.
UNRWA noted that while it operated about 400 sites across the territory, the GHF has set up only four “mega-sites”, three in the south and one in central Gaza – none in the north, where conditions are the most severe.
A recent report from Israeli outlet Haaretz detailed Israeli soldiers, in their words, confirming that Israeli troops have deliberately shot at unarmed Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza after being “ordered” to do so by their commanders.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, while displacing most of the population of more than two million multiple times, triggering widespread hunger through a punishing blockade and leaving much of the territory in ruins.
The war began after Hamas-led fighters crossed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 captives back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
