THE United Nations human rights office has said it recorded at least 613 killings of Palestinians, both at controversial aid points run by the Israeli and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and near humanitarian convoys.
“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 said 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, said they “recorded evidence of civilians being deliberately killed by the Israeli military”.
“More than 600 Palestinian civilians were killed at these centres,” he said. “Some were shot by Israeli snipers, others were killed by drone attacks, air strikes or shootings targeting families seeking aid.”
Medical sources have told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces have killed 51 Palestinians in Gaza since dawn on Friday.
In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the Israeli military killed at least 15 Palestinians following a series of deadly attacks on makeshift tents in the al-Mawasi coastal area, which was once classified as a so-called humanitarian safe zone by Israel. Attacks there have been relentless.
The Israeli army also issued new forced displacement threats for several areas of Khan Younis. The warnings for parts in the city’s east and centre include the area where the Nasser Hospital is located.
A mother, whose son was killed while trying to get food, told Al Jazeera that she “lost everything” after his death.
“My son was a provider, I depended totally on him,” she said, adding: “He was the pillar and foundation of our life.”
The woman called the GHF’s aid distribution centres “death traps”.
“We are forced to go there out of desperation for food; we go there out of hunger,” she said.
“Instead of coming back carrying a bag of flour, people themselves are being carried back as bodies,” she added.
The World Health Organization said on Friday that Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis is operating as “one massive trauma ward” due to an influx of patients injured around GHF sites.