UN says 875 Palestinians have been killed near Gaza aid sites

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -The U.N. rights office said on Tuesday it had recorded at least 875 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and convoys run by other relief groups, including the United Nations.

The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, while the remaining 201 were killed on the routes of other aid convoys.

The GHF uses private U.S. security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a U.N.-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the allegation.

The GHF, which began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May after Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade, previously told Reuters that such incidents have not occurred on its sites and accused the U.N. of misinformation, which it denies.

The GHF did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest UN figures.

"The data we have is based on our own information gathering through various reliable sources, including medical human rights and humanitarian organizations," Thameen Al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.

The United Nations has called the GHF aid model "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.

The GHF said on Friday it had delivered more than 70 million meals to Gaza Palestinians in five weeks, and that other humanitarian groups had "nearly all of their aid looted" by Hamas or criminal gangs.

The Israeli army previously told Reuters in a statement that it was reviewing recent mass casualties and that it had sought to minimise friction between Palestinians and the Israel Defence Forces by installing fences and signs and opening additional routes.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has previously cited instances of violent pillaging of aid, and the U.N. World Food Programme said last week that most trucks carrying food assistance into Gaza had been intercepted by "hungry civilian communities".

(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, Editing by Friederike Heine and Alex Richardson)