72 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza´s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 72 people on Thursday, including 21 who had gathered near aid distribution sites as famine looms after more than 20 months of war.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that six people were killed while waiting for aid in the southern Gaza Strip and 15 others in a central area known as the Netzarim corridor, where thousands of Palestinians have gathered daily in the hope of receiving food rations.

The Israeli army told AFP that its troops in Netzarim corridor -- a strip of land militarised by Israel that bisects the Palestinian territory -- had fired “warning shots” at “suspects” approaching them, but that it was “not aware of any injured individuals”.

The army did not comment on the incident reported in the south. In northern Gaza, Bassal said that nine separate Israeli strikes killed another 51 people, updating earlier tolls provided by his agency.

Bassam Abu Shaar, who witnessed the shooting incident in the Netzarim area, said thousands of people had gathered there overnight in the hope of receiving aid at the US- and Israeli-backed distribution site when it opened in the morning.

“Around 1:00 am (2200 GMT Wednesday), they started shooting at us,” he told AFP by phone, reporting gunfire, tank shelling and bombs dropped by drones.

Abu Shaar said that the size of the crowd had made it impossible for people to escape, with casualties left lying on the ground within walking distance of the distribution point, which is run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

“We couldn´t help them or even escape ourselves,” he said. Like thousands of other Palestinians in Gaza, Hind Al-Nawajha takes a dangerous, miles-long journey every day to try to get some food for her family, hoping she makes it back alive.

Accompanied by her sister, Mazouza, the mother-of-four had to duck down and hide behind a pile of rubble on the side of the road as gunshots echoed nearby. “You either come back carrying (food) for your children and they will be happy, or you come back in a shroud, or you go back upset (without food) and your children will cry,” said Nawajha, 38, a resident of Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza. “This is life, we are being slaughtered, we can’t do it anymore.”