AID STORM AS ATTACKS KEEP ON...

New group 'is weaponising assistance'

- BY CHRIS HUGHES

AT least 81 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza within a 24-hour period.

The mounting death toll came as a controversial Israel and US-backed aid group began distributing supplies in the south of the Strip.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been slammed by other aid groups who say it is politicised.

Former United Nations Relief Agency spokesman Chris Gunness blasted the scheme as "aid washing".

He added: "It's quite simply the use of humanitarian aid to justify the weaponisation of humanitarian assistance, but also to justify ethnic cleansing and genocide."

With famine looming in war-ravaged Gaza, Israeli tank and gunfire was reported yesterday as crowds of Palestinians tried to reach a newly opened GHF aid distribution centre.