UN reports 798 deaths near Gaza aid hubs in six weeks

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -The U.N. rights office said on Friday it had recorded at least 798 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near convoys run by other relief groups.

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.

After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians trying to reach the GHF's aid hubs in zones where Israeli forces operate, the United Nations has called its aid model "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.

"(From May 27) up until the seventh of July, we've recorded 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys," U.N. rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a media briefing in Geneva.

The GHF, which began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May after Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade, told Reuters the U.N. figures were "false and misleading". It denies that deadly incidents have occurred at its sites.

"The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid site have been linked to U.N. convoys," a GHF spokesperson said.

"Ultimately, the solution is more aid. If the U.N. (and) other humanitarian groups would collaborate with us, we could end or significantly reduce these violent incidents."

The Israeli army 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 (IDF) by installing fences and signs and opening additional routes.

GUNSHOT WOUNDS

The OHCHR said it based its figures on sources such as information from hospitals in Gaza, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs and its partners on the ground.

Most of the injuries to Palestinians in the vicinity of aid distribution hubs recorded by the OHCHR since May 27 were gunshot wounds, Shamdasani said.

"We've raised concerns about atrocity crimes having been committed and the risk of further atrocity crimes being committed where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food," she said.

After the GHF assertion that the OHCHR figures are false and misleading, Shamdasani said: "It is not helpful to issue blanket dismissals of our concerns - what is needed is investigations into why people are being killed while trying to access aid."

Israel has said its forces operate near the relief aid sites to prevent supplies falling into the hands of militants it has been fighting in the Gaza war triggered by the Hamas-led cross-border attack on October 7, 2023.

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 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".

There is an acute shortage of food and other basic supplies 21 months into Israel's military campaign in Gaza, during which much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble and most of its 2.3 million inhabitants displaced.

(Additinal reporting by Crispian Balmer and Charlotte Greenfield in Jerusalem, Editing by Miranda Murray, Mark Heinrich and Timothy Heritage)