Israeli forces killed four aid seekers travelling on Sunday (August 24, 2025) through a military zone south of Gaza City — an area regularly used by Palestinians trying to reach a food distribution point, a hospital and witnesses said.

The deaths add to the growing toll of Palestinians killed while seeking food, as parts of the Gaza Strip plunge into famine and Israel’s military ramps up activity in northern Gaza ahead of a planned offensive to seize its largest city.

Al-Awda Hospital and two eyewitnesses told The Associated Press that the four Palestinians were killed when troops opened fire on a crowd heading to a site run by the Israeli-backed American contractor Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, in the Netzarim corridor area. It occurred hundreds of meters (yards) away from the site.

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“The gunfire was indiscriminate,” Mohamed Abed, a father of two from the Bureij refugee camp, said, adding that while many fled, some people fell to the ground after being shot.

Abed and Aymed Sayyad, another aid seeker among the crowd, said troops opened fire when a group near the front of the crowd pushed forward toward a distribution site before its scheduled opening.

Mr. Sayyad said he and others helped two people who were wounded by gunshots, one in his shoulder and the other in his leg.

The Israeli military and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Malnutrition-related deaths

The four deaths are the latest in areas where UN convoys have been overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds, and where people have been shot and killed while heading to sites run by the GHF.

More than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 13,500 wounded while seeking aid at distribution points or along convoy routes used by the United Nations and other aid groups, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Ministry said on Saturday that at least 62,622 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including missing people now confirmed dead by a special ministry judicial committee.

It said the number of malnutrition-related deaths rose by eight to 281. The deaths include a child, bringing the death toll among children to 115 since the war between Israel and Hamas began in 2023. A total of 174 adults have died of malnutrition-related causes since late June, it added.

The Health Ministry does not say how many of those killed have been fighters or civilians, but says around half have been women and children. It is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification — the world’s leading authority on food crises — said Friday that famine is happening in Gaza City, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and could spread south to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month.

Israel has denied there’s hunger in Gaza, calling reports of starvation “lies” promoted by Hamas.

‘Non-stop explosions’

In Jabaliya, the densely populated refugee camp just north of Gaza City, residents said they endured heavy explosions overnight. Days after Israel’s military announced it was intensifying its operations in the area and mobilising tens of thousands of reservists to take the city, they said they were living in constant fear.

In the part of Gaza City where he and his family have sheltered since being displaced from a neighbourhood on the city’s southern edge, Ossama Matter said he had seen houses reduced to rubble and neighbourhoods razed beyond recognition.

“They want it like Rafah,” he said, referring to a town in southern Gaza destroyed earlier in the war. “There have been non-stop explosions and strikes in the past days.”

While fleeing westward from Jabaliya, schoolteacher Salim Dhaher said he saw weaponised robots planting explosives as troops advanced from the opposite direction. As they set the stage for Israel’s push to seize the city, Dhaher said he feared it was part of a larger effort to forcibly remove Palestinians from the north.

The aim is clear, he said: “To destroy everything above the ground, and force the transfer.”

There has been little sign of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians evacuating south ahead of Israel’s invasion of Gaza City, which Israel says is still a Hamas stronghold. Many are exhausted by repeated displacements and unconvinced that any area— including so-called humanitarian zones — offers safety.

The military operation could begin within days in a region that threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, who are sheltering in an area Israel has invaded multiple times but still believes harbours a network of militant tunnels underground.

Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals, but 50 remain inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive.

Published – August 24, 2025 05:54 pm IST

Israeli military strikes killed at least 50 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip as Israeli forces tightened their squeeze around Jabalia in the north of the enclave on Tuesday (October 15, 2024) amid fierce battles with Hamas-led fighters.

Palestinian health officials said at least 17 people were killed by Israeli fire near Al-Falouja in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, while 10 others were killed in Bani Suhaila in eastern Khan Younis in the south when an Israeli missile struck a house.

Earlier on Tuesday (October 15, 2024), an Israeli airstrike destroyed three houses in the Sabra suburb of Gaza City, and the local civil emergency service said they recovered two bodies from the site, while the search continued for 12 other people who were believed to have been in the houses at the time of the strike.

Eight others were killed when a house was struck in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.

Later on Tuesday (October 15, 2024), the Gaza health ministry said one doctor was killed when he tried to help the people wounded by Israeli strikes in Al-Falouja in Jabalia. It added that several medics were wounded when their ambulance came under Israeli fire in the northern and southern Gaza Strip.

Jabalia has been the focus of an Israeli offensive for more than 10 days, with troops returning to areas of the north that came under heavy bombardment in the early months of the year-long war.

The operation has raised concerns among Palestinians and U.N. agencies that Israel wants to clear residents from the north of the crowded enclave, a charge it has denied. Residents said Israeli forces destroyed dozens of houses in the past 10 days.

The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday (October 15, 2024) the Israeli military appeared to be “cutting off North Gaza completely from the rest of the Gaza Strip.”

“Amid intense ongoing hostilities and evacuation orders in northern Gaza families are facing unimaginable fear, loss of loved ones, confusion, and exhaustion. People must be able to flee safely, without facing further danger,” Adrian Zimmerman, ICRC Gaza head of sub-delegation, said in a statement.

“Many, including the sick and disabled, cannot leave, and they remain protected under international humanitarian law – all possible precautions must be taken to ensure they remain unharmed. Every person displaced has the right to return home in safety,” he added.

The Israeli military’s humanitarian unit, Cogat, which overseas aid and commercial shipments to Gaza, said in a statement on Tuesday (October 15, 2024) that the operations in Jabalia were targeting terrorist infrastructure and operatives embedded inside civilian areas. It said it was facilitating humanitarian and in particular medical aid to residents.

Hamas denies it embeds its operatives amongst civilians.

Jabalia Encircled

The Israeli military has now encircled the Jabalia camp and sent tanks into nearby Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun towns, with the declared aim of stamping out Hamas fighters who are trying to regroup there.

The Israeli military has told residents to leave their homes and head to safety in southern Gaza. Palestinian and U.N. officials say there was no place safe in Gaza.

Hamas’ armed wing said fighters were engaged in fierce battles with Israeli forces in and around Jabalia.

Mr. Zimmerman also urged for health facilities in the north to be protected, saying hospitals were struggling to provide medical services.

Evacuation order for three Gaza hospital

Gaza’s health ministry said the army ordered the three hospitals operating there to evacuate but medical staffers said they were determined to continue their services even though they are overwhelmed by the growing number of casualties.

Cogat said in recent days it had facilitated the transfer of 33 patients, medical staff and accompanying personnel from the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north to functioning facilities elsewhere in Gaza.

It said it has also provided 68,650 litres of fuel to hospitals and coordinated the delivery of 800 blood transfusion units.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Israel was trying to give a misleading impression and that its forces had been preventing ambulance and civil emergency teams from recovering the bodies of dozens of people from the streets.

Israel “aims to completely destroy the health system and hospitals,” Thawabta said, adding that Israel’s military has maintained a siege on the region for more than 170 consecutive days, closing all humanitarian access points.

On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the level of civilian casualties in northern Gaza.

The northern part of Gaza is home to well over half the territory’s 2.3 million people and hundreds of thousands of residents were forced to flee their homes amidst heavy bombing in the first phase of Israel’s assault on the territory.

Around 400,000 people remained, according to United Nations estimates.

Israel launched the offensive against Hamas after the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage to Gaza, by Israeli tallies. More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive so far, according to Gaza’s health authorities.

Thousands of people are trapped in Gaza’s Jabalia camp as Israeli forces attack the area, Médecins Sans Frontières(Doctors Without Borders) said on Friday, a week after Israel launched an offensive there which it says is aimed at stopping Hamas regrouping.

At least 20 Palestinians were killed and dozens more were wounded late on Friday by Israeli strikes in Jabalia, which also damaged four nearby homes, medics told Reuters. The death toll is likely to rise, they added.

Israeli military strikes killed at least 61 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Friday, the medics added. Nearly half of the fatalities, including the 20 killed at the home, occurred in Jabalia, the northern district which is the largest of Gaza’s historic refugee camps.

The Israeli military says it has killed dozens of militants in Jabalia, though it remains unclear how many of the dead were civilians rather than fighters.

“Nobody is allowed to get in or out; anyone who tries is getting shot,” MSF project coordinator Sarah Vuylsteke said on X.

Five MSF staff were trapped in Jabalia, she said.

“I don’t know what to do; at any moment we could die. People are starving. I am afraid to stay, and I am also afraid to leave,” she quoted Haydar, an MSF driver, as saying.

At least 15 of the fatalities in Jabalia since dawn were due to Israeli strikes targeting various areas, including a school sheltering displaced individuals, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said, citing medical sources.

Gaza’s Civil Defence said dozens were wounded by Israeli quadcopter drone fire at the same school.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has previously said Gaza’s militants use such shelters for cover. Hamas has denied this.

The Israeli military has sent troops into the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya as well as Jabalia. Hamas has said it will keep fighting Israeli forces.

Palestinian health officials have reported at least 130 deaths in the operation so far, while the military has told residents to evacuate areas where the UN estimates over 400,000 people are trapped.

United Nations officials expressed concern that the ongoing Israeli offensive and evacuation orders in northern Gaza could disrupt the second phase of its polio vaccination campaign set to begin next week.

Healthcare officials have reported that dozens of facilities in Gaza are under evacuation orders from the Israeli military, complicating humanitarian efforts amid the conflict.

Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month after a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 poliovirus in August, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israeli ground forces operated within the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, attacking multiple Hamas targets before withdrawing. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israeli ground forces operated within the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, attacking multiple Hamas targets before withdrawing, the military said in a statement on what Israel’s Army Radio described as the biggest incursion of the current war.

Video of the overnight action issued by the military showed armoured vehicles proceeding through a sandy border zone. A bulldozer is seen levelling part of a raised bank, tanks fire shells, and explosions are seen near or amid a row of damaged buildings.

The military statement posted online said the incursion was carried out “in preparation for the next stages of combat”, a possible reference to the large-scale invasion that Israeli leaders have threatened as part of the war to destroy Hamas.

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“The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory,” the military statement added.

Israel began localised ground incursions on Sunday as the war, triggered by an October 7 cross-border rampage by Hamas gunmen, entered its third week. Israel’s Army Radio described Thursday’s incursion as the biggest yet.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas in Gaza.