More Gazans die seeking aid and from hunger; burial shrouds in short supply

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -At least 40 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and airstrikes on Gaza on Monday, including 10 seeking aid, health authorities said, adding another five had died of starvation in what humanitarian agencies say may be an unfolding famine.

The 10 died in two separate incidents near aid sites belonging to the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in central and southern Gaza, local medics said. The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in the enclave since the GHF began operating in May 2025, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.

The GHF said there were no incidents at or near their sites on Monday. Reuters was unable to verify where the incidents took place.

Bilal Thari, 40, was among mourners at Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital on Monday who had gathered to collect the bodies of Palestinians killed a day earlier by Israeli fire as they sought aid, Gaza health officials said.

"Everyone who goes there, comes back either with a bag of flour or carried back (on a wooden stretcher) as a martyr, or injured. No one comes back safe," Thari said.

At least 13 Palestinians were killed on Sunday while waiting for the arrival of U.N. aid trucks at the Zikim crossing on the Israeli border with the northern Gaza Strip, the officials said.

At the hospital, some bodies were wrapped in thick patterned blankets because white shrouds, which hold special significance in Islamic burials, were in short supply due to continued Israeli border restrictions and the mounting number of daily deaths, Palestinians said.

"We don’t want war, we want peace, we want this misery to end. We are out on the streets, we all are hungry, we are all in bad shape, women are out there on the streets, we have nothing available for us to live a normal life like all human beings, there’s no life," Thari said.

There was no immediate comment by Israel on Sunday's incident.

The Israeli military said in a statement to Reuters that it had not fired earlier on Monday in the vicinity of the aid distribution centre in the southern Gaza Strip. It did not elaborate further.

Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it is taking steps for more aid to reach its population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, allowing airdrops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he would convene his security cabinet this week to discuss how the military should proceed in Gaza to meet all his government's war goals, which include defeating Hamas and releasing the hostages.

DEATHS FROM HUNGER

Meanwhile, five more people died of starvation or malnutrition over the last 24 hours, Gaza's health ministry said on Monday. The new deaths raised the toll of those dying from hunger to 180, including 93 children, since the war began.

U.N. agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease access to it.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, said that during the last week, over 23,000 tons of humanitarian aid in 1,200 trucks had entered Gaza but that hundreds of the trucks had yet to be driven to aid distribution hubs by U.N. and other international organizations.

Israel's military later said 120 aid packages containing food had been dropped into Gaza "over the past few hours" by six different countries in collaboration with COGAT.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said on Sunday that more than 600 aid trucks had arrived since Israel eased restrictions in late July. However, witnesses and Hamas sources said many of those trucks have been looted by desperate displaced people and armed gangs.

Palestinian and U.N. officials said Gaza needs around 600 aid trucks to enter per day to meet the humanitarian requirements - the number Israel used to allow into Gaza before the war.

The Gaza war began when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures. Israel's offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.

According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Mahmoud Issa; Additional reporting by Steve Scheer in Jerusalem; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Gareth Jones)