At least 73 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in the past 24 hours, medics said, while two more — including a six-year-old child — died from starvation caused by Israel’s blockade in the enclave.
Those killed on Tuesday included 19 aid seekers, as the European Union and 26 countries, including Canada, France and the United Kingdom, condemned the “unimaginable levels” of suffering in Gaza and called for urgent action to halt and reverse the unfolding famine in the war-torn territory, Al Jazeera reported.
Survivors of the latest attacks on aid seekers, which took place near the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza, described horrific scenes.
“There was gunfire all around; we didn’t know what was happening. People were dying in front of us, bullets flying between our legs, and we couldn’t do anything,” said a man who gave his name as Sayyid. “We got here to get a bite to eat, but we can barely make it. We’re exhausted, we’re dying… a piece of bread can now cost your life.”
Another survivor, Mohammed Abu Nahl, described crawling on his stomach “with bullets flying all around” as the wounded and dead lay all around him.
“The dead were lying beneath us, and we were pulling them out,” he said. “I came here just to feed my children. I have no money to buy food. If I had food and water, I wouldn’t come here. What should I do? Steal? Loot? “We call on all countries to stand with us, to stop the war, and to end our suffering.”
The Nasser Medical Complex, meanwhile, announced the deaths of six-year-old Jamal Fadi al-Najjar and 30-year-old Wissam Abu Mohsen from malnutrition.
The killings at Zikim take the death toll of aid seekers to more than 1,838 since late May, when the notorious United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began its operations in Gaza.
A mourner reacts during the funeral of Palestinians from Irheem family, who were killed in an overnight Israeli strike, according to medics, in Gaza City, August 11, 2025. REUTERS
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, said in a post on X: “The Israeli Army continues to silence voices reporting atrocities from Gaza.”
The Israeli Army continues to silence voices reporting atrocities from #Gaza.
I am horrified by the killing of another 5 journalists in #Gaza city.
Since the war began, more than 200 Palestinian journalists have been reported killed in total impunity.
Israel is also…
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) August 11, 2025
“Israel is also blocking access of international journalists to report independently since the war began nearly two years ago. Journalists must be protected and international media must get into Gaza to support the heroic work of their Palestinian colleagues. This is the only way to counter disinformation and prevent doubts about the scale of atrocities committed in Gaza.
Read: Gaza civil defence carries out 45 operations in a day
‘Daily patterns’ in shootings at GHF sites
An American paediatrician who volunteered in the Gaza Strip says the injuries inflicted on Palestinian aid seekers at sites run by the GHF suggest that Israeli forces deliberately shot men and boys by targeting and maiming specific body parts on specific days.
![Palestinians take the bodies of loved ones killed in Israeli attacks to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza, on Tuesday [Anadolu]](https://i.tribune.com.pk/media/images/31755068493-2/31755068493-2.png)
Ahmed Yousaf made the comments to Al Jazeera from the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Tuesday, hours after returning from Gaza, where he had spent two and a half weeks working at Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir el-Balah and al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
The doctor said he witnessed “mass casualty incidents” from Israeli shootings at the food distribution points run by the United States-backed GHF on an almost daily basis.
The boys and young men came in with very specific injuries, “almost like a daily pattern”, he said.
“Meaning on a given day, say Monday, we’d get 40, 60 patients coming in at a given time, and they would all be shot in the legs, or in the pelvic area, or the groin on a given day, just kind of a similar pattern. And the next day, we would see upper body, chest, thoracic pattern, and then there were days we saw only head wounds, upper neck bullet wounds. And what it felt like, at least for me, the position that I went with, was that somebody behind the gun that day was going to choose the way they were either going to maim or decide to kill people,” he said.
Yousaf’s comments are the latest by medical staff in Gaza that accuse Israeli forces and US contractors of targeted and indiscriminate violence at the GHF sites.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said last week that the GHF-run food distributions in famine-stricken Gaza have become sites of “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation”, while Human Rights Watch said the shootings amount to serious violations of international law and war crimes.
At least 1,838 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid, and another 13,409 have been wounded since the GHF began its operations in late May, official figures show.
Yousaf, the US paediatrician, said the victims at the sites were mainly boys and young men, as they are often the ones taking the risk to try to get food for their families, “given the dynamic of the risk associated with trying to carry a 5-pound [2.3kg] bag of flour, maybe kilometres, sometimes”.
“The people would tell us they were sometimes at the site, or around the area, or they were trying to leave… and they were shot indiscriminately; it was like they were being sprayed. It seemed quite obvious to them and to us, from a pattern-recognition perspective, in terms of who came to the ER [emergency room], that on a given day, whoever was deciding on the trigger was choosing a very specific pattern of fire,” he said.
Read More: UN says over 1,300 Palestinians killed seeking aid in Gaza since May
The doctor went on to describe all of Gaza as a “death trap”. “It is a cage in which people are being marked for death. It almost feels like there is a quota for the number of people that need to be killed on a given day,” Yousaf said.
On the days that Palestinians stayed away from the GHF sites, because Israel allowed in more aid trucks, there would be more intense air attacks, he said.
“The last four days that we were there, when there was a bit more aid access via food trucks that were allowed in, the risk profile changed and them going to the food distribution sites wasn’t nearly worth the risk because there was some food elsewhere, we saw a significant uptick in bomb blasts on the streets, homes, vehicles. So the pattern of the MCIs – the mass casualty incidents – changed from bullet wounds, mostly boys and young men, to just indiscriminate bombings. We saw women and children, the elderly, on the days the bombs came in,” he told Al Jazeera.
The doctor described the Israeli atrocities in Gaza as a “genocide”.
Palestinians shop in an open-air market among the ruins of houses and buildings destroyed in Israeli strikes during the conflict, amid a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, November 30, 2023. REUTERS
One clear aspect of this, he said, was Israel’s refusal to let him and his colleagues take in medical supplies or baby formula.
“When we were screened by the [Israeli military] at the border, the vast majority of us had things confiscated from our bags. Things like food and multivitamins and antibiotics and medical supplies, like stethoscopes, everything you can imagine, that we wished we could have to treat the people on the ground in Gaza,” he said.
“And this resulted in a situation in which, when those patients came in, in different stages of dying, screaming in pain for their mothers… we knew that in any other environment, we could have done something for them, but in the environment of Gaza, in the death trap that is Gaza completely, we were unable to give them the aid that they deserve, to provide the human dignity and humanity that they deserve.”
![People around the world have mourned and paid tribute to the journalists, including Anas al-Sharif, who was well known for his reporting from northern Gaza [AFP]](https://i.tribune.com.pk/media/images/11755068492-0/11755068492-0.png)
People around the world have mourned and paid tribute to the journalists, including Anas al-Sharif, who was well known for his reporting from northern Gaza [AFP]
Photo: AFP
New Zealand Prime Minister slams Netanyahu
New Zealand PM Christopher Luxon says Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost the plot” as his country weighs up whether to recognise a Palestinian state.
“I think what’s happening in Gaza is utterly appalling. I think Netanyahu has gone way too far. I think he has lost the plot,” the PM told reporters.
He called Israeli attacks overnight on Gaza “utterly, utterly unacceptable” and said the forceful displacement of people and the annexation of Gaza would be a breach of international law. “We have called these things out consistently … and he’s just not listening,” the leader added.
Luxon said earlier this week that New Zealand was considering whether to recognise a Palestinian state. Close ally Australia on Monday joined Canada, the UK and France in announcing it would do so at a UN conference in September.
Also Read: Australia to recognise Palestinian state
Palestinians take the bodies of loved ones killed in Israeli attacks to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza, on Tuesday [Anadolu]
Israel’s war in Gaza
The war, now in its 21st month, has killed more than 61,599 Palestinians and wounded 154,088, according to Gazan health authorities. Most of the victims are reported to be women and children.
Last November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel is also facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its conduct in Gaza.
