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euro-mediterranean human rights monitor
'The Never-Ending Hunger Games of Gaza': IDF Kills 70+ Palestinians Trying to Get Food Aid
"It was a massacre," said one witness, adding that Israeli troops continued firing on people as they fled.
Jun 17, 2025
With the world's eyes on the escalating Israel-Iran conflict, the Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday killed at least dozens of people waiting for food trucks in the Gaza Strip, yet another IDF massacre of starving Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid.
Eyewitnesses told journalists that while Palestinians were gathered on a route used by humanitarian assistance trucks in Khan Younis, Israeli forces conducted an airstrike on a nearby home and then targeted the crowd with gun and tank fire.
The Gaza Health Ministry and Nasser Hospital initially confirmed that more than 50 people were dead and over 200 others were wounded. Al Jazeera later reported that the ministry said the death toll had risen beyond 70.
People in the crowd were "blown to pieces, body parts were scattered all over the place," witness Saeed Abu Lebda told the outlet. "The number of victims is way more than those brought to the hospital. But no one could reach them to provide help."
At Nasser Hospital, a witness named Alaa recalled to Reuters that "all of a sudden, they let us move forward and made everyone gather, and then shells started falling, tank shells."
"No one is looking at these people with mercy," Alaa added. "The people are dying, they are being torn apart, to get food for their children. Look at these people, all these people are torn to get flour to feed their children."
As The Associated Press reported:
Yousef Nofal, an eyewitness, said he saw many people motionless and bleeding on the ground after Israeli forces opened fire. "It was a massacre," he said, adding that the soldiers continued firing on people as they fled from the area.
Mohammed Abu Qeshfa said he heard a loud explosion followed by heavy gunfire and tank shelling. "I survived by a miracle," he said.
"A witness who spoke with Haaretz said that the Palestinians were hit in an area that the army considers an active combat zone, and they were not in the vicinity of an established distribution center nearby," according to the Israeli newspaper.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that "earlier today, a gathering was identified adjacent to an aid distribution truck that got stuck in the area of Khan Younis, and in proximity to IDF troops operating in the area."
"The IDF is aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals from IDF fire following the crowd's approach. The details of the incident are under review," the Israeli military continued. "The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible to them while maintaining the safety of our troops."
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday that since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, the Israeli assault on the Palestinian enclave had killed at least 55,432 people, with thousands more missing in rubble and presumed dead.
Over the past 20 months, the IDF has repeatedly slaughtered Palestinians trying to access food assistance, including at hubs recently set up by the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) following an Israeli blockade on aid.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a lengthy Tuesday statement that GHF "is directly responsible for the escalating Israeli crimes against starved Palestinian civilians near aid distribution points in central and southern Gaza."
"The foundation's operational model involves luring civilians to specific locations coordinated with the Israeli army, where they are subjected to killing, injury, and cruel and degrading treatment," Euro-Med Monitor said. "These points have effectively become death traps used as tools in Israel's ongoing genocide against the Palestinian population for over 20 months."
The monitor called for independent international investigations into the Tuesday killings and GHF's role "in facilitating and executing serious crimes committed against Palestinian civilians," as well as a halt on all financial or logistical support to the foundation, criminal probes against all individuals affiliated with it, and civil lawsuits for implicated entities and individuals.
"Euro-Med Monitor also calls on all states, individually and collectively, to uphold their legal obligations and take urgent action to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza in all its forms," the group added. "Finally, Euro-Med Monitor urges the international community to impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel in response to its systematic and grave violations of international law."
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Gaza Officials Report Hundreds of Recent Deaths From Starvation and Medicine Shortage
"Two months ago, malnutrition cases did not exceed 50 cases per day," said one nurse in Gaza. "Now, we're seeing about 200 cases per day."
May 22, 2025
Palestinian officials said Thursday that at least 29 children and elders have starved to death over the past two days in Gaza, where more than 300 Palestinians have recently died from malnutrition and lack of medicine due to Israel's siege and bombing, which killed more than 50 people since dawn.
Palestinian Authority Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan's report of at least 29 starvation-related deaths among children and elderly people in the coastal enclave since Tuesday followed Wednesday's announcement by the Gaza Government Media Office (GMO) that a total of 326 Palestinians have died of malnutrition and food and medicine shortages since Israel tightened its "complete siege" on March 2.
Among the victims are 26 dialysis-dependent kidney patients. Officials also reported 300 miscarriages during the same period. Most of Gaza's hospitals have been damaged or destroyed in what critics have called a systematic and genocidal attack on the strip's healthcare system.
"History will not forget U.S. complicity in enabling this horrific humanitarian disaster."
The GMO voiced "grave concern and condemnation of the worsening humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip as a result of the occupation's continued implementation of a systematic starvation policy and preventing the entry of food [and] medical supplies in addition to fuel for 80 consecutive days, in a clear and complete crime amounting to genocide."
"This is accompanied by a complete closure of all crossings, in flagrant violation of all international laws and norms, and in full view of the international community," the agency added.
JUST IN | Palestinian Health Minister: 29 Have Died of Starvation in Gaza in Recent Days Palestinian Health Minister Dr. Majid Abu Ramadan says 29 people—mostly children and elderly—have died of starvation-related causes in Gaza in recent days, warning that thousands more are at risk.
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— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) May 22, 2025 at 7:02 AM
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor also reported a sharp rise in starvation deaths in Gaza, documenting 26 fatalities including nine children in just 24 hours.
Israel has grudgingly allowed a trickle of aid to enter Gaza in recent days, under intense international pressure and acknowledgment by even some of its staunchest supporters—including U.S. President Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee, his ambassador to Jerusalem—that Gazans are starving.
However, experts say the 90 truckloads of aid that entered the strip on Thursday were but a fraction of the 500-600 trucks per day needed to sustain starving Palestinians there.
Furthermore, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS)—which is still reeling from an Israeli massacre of its personnel in March—warned Thursday that allowing so few trucks into Gaza is an "invitation for killing" by desperate mobs.
U.S.-based Project HOPE, one of the few international humanitarian groups still operating medical clinics in Gaza, told The Guardian Thursday that "malnutrition among children, pregnant, and lactating women has surged amid the almost three-month aid blockade, with some clinics reporting up to 42% of pregnant women and 34% of lactating mothers being diagnosed as malnourished."
Ghadeer, a Project HOPE nurse in Gaza, said:
The number of malnutrition cases has skyrocketed. Two months ago, malnutrition cases did not exceed 50 cases per day. Now, we're seeing about 200 cases per day. Many of the children we see haven't eaten real food in weeks—only the nutritional biscuits we distribute. They're losing weight, becoming withdrawn, and getting sick more easily. We are doing everything we can, but we're seeing the consequences of extreme hunger in an entire generation. Without more food and aid coming in, I fear for their future.
Israel's forced starvation of Gazans has drawn mounting criticism, including from Israelis like Yair Golan—a former lawmaker and senior general who said earlier this week that "a sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population."
In the United States, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday renewed his call for an end to American armed aid to Israel, while asserting that "history will not forget U.S. complicity in enabling this horrific humanitarian disaster."
The American online educator Rachel Accurso, popularly known as Ms. Rachel, also continued speaking out against the suffering inflicted upon Gaza's children. Holding one of her own children and showing a photo of Suwar Ashur, a 5-month-old Palestinian suffering from acute malnutrition, Accurso implored world leaders to "help this baby" in a video shared widely on social media Wednesday.
"Please look at her," she pleaded. "Please, please look at her. Just please look at her eyes for one minute."
American youtuber Rachel Anne Accurso, known as Ms. Rachel, expresses her deep sadness on the situation of the starving Gaza children, appealing to the world to save them, following UN report that 14,000 children are at risk of death. pic.twitter.com/yO5KoN2PN0
— Kuffiya (@Kuffiyateam) May 21, 2025
"If you just look at her, and if you just think about a baby you love, think about a baby you care so much for, there's no way that we all don't know that you can't kill 15,000 kids, and you can't be about to let 14,000 kids starve," Accurso added, referring to an earlier estimate of the number of children killed since October 2023 and last week's United Nations warning of imminent mass starvation.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that at least 16,500 Palestinian children have been killed in the strip since October 2023, including 916 infants.
"Whatever is keeping you from standing up for these kids, who don't have food and medical care and who have had amputations without anesthesia, whatever is keeping you from saying it, it's not greater than your humanity," Accurso added.
Meanwhile, Operation Gideon's Chariots—the Israel Defense Forces' campaign to conquer, indefinitely occupy, and ethnically cleanse Gaza, possibly to make way for Jewish recolonization—continued Thursday as the IDF issued fresh evacuation orders for people in the heavily bombed Beit Lahia and Jabalia areas in the far north of the strip. Most of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, often more than once.
IDF bombing reportedly killed 52 people since dawn on Thursday, bringing the cumulative death toll from 593 days of bombardment, invasion, and siege to at least 53,762, with more than 122,000 others wounded and over 14,000 more missing and feared dead and buried beneath rubble, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel's annihilation of Gaza is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice
genocide case led by South Africa. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including extermination and weaponized starvation.
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Scores of Civilians Reportedly Among Victims of Latest US Airstrikes on Yemen
Strikes include Monday morning market bombing that killed at least 12 people and a Thursday attack on an oil port that left 80 dead.
Apr 21, 2025
Scores of civilians have reportedly been killed or wounded by U.S. airstrikes on Yemen—including at an oil port and market—since late last week as the Trump administration continues its monthlong intensification of strikes targeting Houthi rebels, who vowed to carry out more operations against enablers of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
The Houthis said Monday that U.S. airstrikes on the Yemeni capital Sanaa killed dozens, including a strike on the popular Farwah market in the Shuub neighborhood that killed 12 people and wounded 30 others.
As the Houthis did not disclose victims' combatant status and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) refused to answer questions about civilians killed in the strikes, it is unclear how many noncombatants were among the dead and wounded. Video footage recorded in the strike's aftermath shows rescue workers uncovering the body of a small child found amid the rubble while a woman shrieks, "Let it be a dream!"
In what were likely the deadliest U.S. attacks on Yemen since U.S. President Donald Trumplaunched the current bombing campaign last month, at least 80 people including dozens of workers were killed and more than 150 others wounded in a series of Thursday airstrikes on the Ras Isa oil port on the Red Sea north of Hodeidah, according to the Hodeidah Health Office.
Al Jazeera reported that the first four U.S. strikes on the port happened while people were still working. Officials said first responders including paramedics and rescue workers who rushed to the scene were killed in subsequent strikes, known as "double taps" in military parlance.
"They targeted a civilian side over there; as you can see, the casualties are all civilians who had worked at this facility," one first responder told Sky News as he gestured toward flaming ruins.
Officials also raised concerns over possible oil leaks into the Red Sea.
CENTCOM said Thursday that ships have continued to supply fuel to the Houthis via the port of Ras Isa—which is the terminus for Yemen's main oil pipeline—despite the group, whose official name is Ansar Allah, being designated a terrorist organization by the Trump administration in March.
"U.S. forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years," CENTCOM said, adding that "this strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres "is gravely concerned about the airstrikes conducted by the United States over the course of April 17th and 18th in and around Yemen's port of Ras Isa, which reportedly resulted in scores of civilian casualties, including five humanitarian workers injured," spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Saturday.
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said Friday that "the use of heavy ordnance against a known civilian facility suggests a deliberate disregard for the risk of mass casualties, explaining the high death toll and raising serious suspicions of a blatant violation of the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution under international humanitarian law."
"The targeted facility was civilian, and the civilian harm caused is grossly disproportionate to the declared military advantage of weakening the Houthis' economic base," the group added. "The use of force against such infrastructure, especially without clear necessity, inflicted severe harm on civilians and further debilitated Yemen's fuel import capabilities."
U.S. forces have been bombing Yemen since the administration of George W. Bush, who launched the open-ended War on Terror in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. There have also been occasional U.S. ground raids in Yemen, including one in January 2017 that killed Nawar al-Awlaki, an 8-year-old American girl whose father and brother were killed in separate U.S. drone strikes during the Obama administration.
According to the U.K.-based monitor Airwars, U.S. forces have killed hundreds of Yemeni civilians in 181 declared actions since 2002. Overall, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have died during the civil war that began in 2014, with international experts attributing more than 150,000 Yemeni deaths to U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing and blockade.
The Pentagon only acknowledges 13 civilian deaths caused by U.S. military action in Yemen. The Trump administration has been particularly tight-lipped about civilian casualties resulting from its operations, a stance some critics have called ironic given that top administration officials shared highly sensitive plans for attacking Yemen on a Signal group chat in which a journalist was inadvertently included. Calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's resignation grew following Sunday's revelation that he shared Yemen war plans in a second Signal chat group that included his relatives and personal attorney.
On Saturday, Houthi spokesperson and senior political officer Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti vowed that "our military operations will continue as long as the genocide in Gaza persists and the siege on its people remains."
Since October 2023, Houthi forces have launched at least scores of mostly unsuccessful missile attacks on Israel-linked shipping, U.S. warships, and Israel itself in solidarity with Gaza.
Israel's 563-day war on Gaza, which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case and is the impetus behind International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—has left more than 182,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, and sickened, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
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