Charities call for end to Israel-backed aid group

DOZENS of international charities and non-governmental organisations have called for an Israeli and US-backed aid mechanism for Gaza to be disbanded over repeated deadly violence against Palestinians heading towards its sites.

- SAMY MAGDY

At least seven Palestinians were killed seeking aid in southern and central Gaza between late Monday and early yesterday.

The deaths came after Israeli forces killed at least 74 people in Gaza earlier on Monday with air strikes that left 30 dead at a seaside cafe, and gunfire that killed 23 as Palestinians tried to get desperately needed food aid, witnesses and health officials said.

The war has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead were women and children.

Yesterday afternoon, the Health Ministry said the bodies of 116 people killed by Israeli strikes had been taken to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours.

The Hamas attack in October 2023 that sparked the war, killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Some 50 hostages are still being held, many of them thought to be dead.

More than 165 major international charities and non-governmental organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty, yesterday called for an immediate end to the Gaza Humanitarian Fund.

"Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families," the group said in a joint news release.