[🇧🇩] Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?

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Israeli fire kills 39 near two aid centres: Gaza civil defence

Gaza's civil defence agency said on Saturday that Israeli fire killed 39 people and wounded more than 100 near two aid centres, in the latest deaths of Palestinians seeking food.

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Israeli fire kills 39 near two aid centres: Gaza civil defence
AFP Gaza City
Published: 20 Jul 2025, 12: 24

Palestinians transport casualties of an Israeli strike on an apartment at the Nuseirat refugee camp, into Al-Awda hospital in the central Gaza Strip on 19 July, 2025. AFP

Gaza's civil defence agency said on Saturday that Israeli fire killed 39 people and wounded more than 100 near two aid centres, in the latest deaths of Palestinians seeking food.

Deaths of people waiting for handouts in huge crowds near food points in Gaza have become a regular occurrence, with the territory's authorities frequently blaming Israeli fire.

But the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has replaced UN agencies as the main distributor of aid in the territory, has accused militant group Hamas of fomenting unrest and shooting at civilians.

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the deaths happened near a site southwest of Khan Yunis and another centre northwest of Rafah, both in southern Gaza, attributing the fatalities to "Israeli gunfire".

One witness said he headed to the Al-Tina area of Khan Yunis before dawn with five of his relatives to try to get food when "Israeli soldiers" started shooting.

"My relatives and I were unable to get anything," Abdul Aziz Abed, 37, told AFP. "Every day I go there and all we get is bullets and exhaustion instead of food."

Three other witnesses also accused troops of opening fire.

'Warning shots

In response, the Israeli military said it "identified suspects who approached them during operational activity in the Rafah area, posing a threat to the troops".

Soldiers called for them to turn back and "after they did not comply, the troops fired warning shots", it said, adding that it was aware of the reports about casualties.

"The incident is under review. The shots were fired approximately one kilometre (more than half a mile) away from the aid distribution site at nighttime when it's not active," it said in a statement.

GHF said reports of deaths near its sites were "false".

"We have repeatedly warned aid-seekers not to travel to our sites overnight and early morning hours," it wrote on X.

An elderly woman holds out an empty pot at a food distribution point in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on 19 July, 2025. AFP

Elsewhere, the civil defence agency reported that an Israeli strike on a house near Nuseirat, in central Gaza, killed 12 people, the latest in a series of deadly bombardments.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and other parties.

The war in Gaza, sparked by militant group Hamas's deadly attack on Israel on 7 October, 2023, has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people who live in the coastal territory.

Most people have been displaced at least once by the fighting, and doctors and aid agencies say they were seeing the physical and mental health effects of 21 months of war, including more acute malnutrition.

The World Food Programme said nearly one in three people in Gaza were not eating for days at a stretch and "thousands" were "on the verge of catastrophic hunger".

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, on Saturday said it had enough food for all of Gaza for more than three months but it was stockpiled in warehouses and blocked from being delivered.

The free flow of aid into Gaza is a key demand of Hamas in indirect negotiations with Israel for a 60-day ceasefire in the war, alongside a full Israeli military withdrawal.

'Agitators'

After a more than two-month Israeli aid blockade, GHF took over the running of aid distribution in late May, despite criticism from the United Nations which previously coordinated handouts, that it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.

GHF acknowledged for the first time that 20 people died at its Khan Yunis site on Wednesday but blamed "agitators in the crowd... armed and affiliated with Hamas" for creating "a chaotic and dangerous surge" and firing at aid-seekers.

The previous day, the UN said it had recorded 875 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food, including 674 "in the vicinity of GHF sites", since it began operating.

Hamas's 2023 attack on Israel led to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel's retaliatory military action has killed 58,765 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.​

 

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Israeli fire kills 57 aid seekers in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd of Palestinians waiting to collect humanitarian aid in the territory’s north on Sunday, killing 57 people and wounding dozens more...

www.newagebd.net

Israeli fire kills 57 aid seekers in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 21 July, 2025, 01:01

Women react as they stand near mourners praying by the bodies of victims who were killed the previous day by Israeli bombardment as they lie outside during the funeral at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday. | AFP photo

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd of Palestinians waiting to collect humanitarian aid in the territory’s north on Sunday, killing 57 people and wounding dozens more.

Further to the south, the Israeli military ordered Palestinians to leave Deir el-Balah, in the centre of the Strip, before launching its first operations against Hamas militants in the area.

Pope Leo XIV, meanwhile, called for peace in Gaza days after Israeli tank fire hit the territory’s only Catholic church, killing three.

Deaths of civilians seeking aid have become a regular occurrence, with the authorities in Gaza blaming Israeli fire as crowds facing chronic shortages of food and other essentials gather in huge numbers near aid centres.

Qasem Abu Khater, 36, said he had rushed to the Al-Sudaniya area of Gaza City in the hope of getting a bag of flour, joining a ‘desperate’ crowd of thousands.

‘There was deadly overcrowding and pushing — women, men and children,’ said Khater, who was displaced from Jabalia, north of the city.

‘It felt like we were no longer alive, like we had no souls left. The tanks were firing shells randomly at us and Israeli sniper soldiers were shooting as if they were hunting animals in a forest,’ he added.

‘Dozens of people were martyred right before my eyes and no one could save anyone.’

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that ‘Israeli forces opened fire on civilians waiting for aid’, and that ‘dozens’ were wounded.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the agency and other parties.

Asked for comment, the military said it was looking into the latest reports of deaths.

The army has maintained that it works to avoid harm to civilians, saying this month that it issued new instructions to its troops on the ground ‘following lessons learned’ from a spate of similar incidents.

The war was sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, leading to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 58,895 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday expressed his regret to Pope Leo XIV after what he described as a ‘stray’ munition killed three people sheltering at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.

At the end of the pope’s Angelus prayer on Sunday, the leader of the world’s Catholics said the strike was part of the ‘on-going military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza’.

‘I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians, as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations,’ he added.

The Catholic Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pier Battista Pizzaballa, held mass at the Gaza church on Sunday after travelling to the territory on Friday.

Most of Gaza’s population of more than two million people have been displaced at least once during the war and there have been repeated evacuation calls across large parts of the coastal territory.

On Sunday, the Israeli military told residents and displaced Palestinians sheltering in the Deir el-Balah area to move south immediately.

Israel was ‘expanding its activities’ against Hamas around Deir el-Balah, ‘where it has not operated before’, the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.

The announcement prompted concern from families of hostages held since October 7, 2023 that the Israeli offensive could harm their loved ones.

They called in a statement for Israeli authorities to ‘urgently explain to Israeli citizens and families what the fighting plan is and how exactly it protects the abductees who are still in Gaza’.

Delegations from Israel and militant group Hamas have spent the last two weeks in indirect talks on a proposed 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and the release of 10 living hostages.

Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.​