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Gaza families are facing catastrophic levels of hunger as Israeli forces killed 132 Palestinians in a single day, including 94 people waiting for humanitarian aid, according to Palestinian health sources and UN agencies.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated that Israel is using starvation as "a weapon of war" against civilians in Gaza, with families confronting disaster-level hunger.
"Families in Gaza are facing catastrophic-level hunger," OCHA's Palestine Office said in a statement on X. "Children are wasting away from hunger, some are losing their lives before food can reach them."
The UN agency warned that civilians searching for food in Gaza face the risk of being killed, noting that many people have been targeted and shot for this reason.
"Hunger should not be used as a tool of war," the statement emphasized, underlining that unimpeded humanitarian aid access to Gaza is both a legal and moral obligation.
Gaza's government Media Office reported that Israel continues to massacre people at aid distribution points who have been condemned to starvation. According to the office, since May 27, the number of Palestinians killed in systematic attacks while gathering to receive humanitarian aid has reached 995, with 6,011 wounded.
Gaza's civil defense agency reported that Israeli forces opened fire on crowds of Palestinians trying to collect humanitarian aid on Sunday, killing 93 people and wounding dozens more.
According to Palestinian news agency Wafa citing health sources, Israeli forces conducted attacks on different points across the Gaza Strip, including those waiting for aid.
Eighty people were killed as truckloads of aid arrived in the north, with 81 of the deaths recorded in the Sudaniye area in northwestern Gaza. Nine others were reportedly shot near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, while four were killed near another aid site in Khan Yunis, also in the south, according to civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Basal.
The UN World Food Programme said its 25-truck convoy carrying food aid "encountered massive crowds of hungry civilians which came under gunfire" near Gaza City, soon after it crossed from Israel and cleared checkpoints.
Israel's military disputed the death toll and said soldiers had fired warning shots "to remove an immediate threat posed to them" as thousands gathered near Gaza City.
In Gaza City, Qasem Abu Khater, 36, told AFP he had rushed to try to get a bag of flour but instead found a desperate crowd of thousands and "deadly overcrowding and pushing."
"The tanks were firing shells randomly at us and Israeli sniper soldiers were shooting as if they were hunting animals in a forest," he said. "Dozens of people were martyred right before my eyes and no one could save anyone."
UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said that failure to pressure Israel to allow aid into Gaza constitutes "complicity in the crime of starving Palestinians."
"We receive the same message every day from UNRWA staff in Gaza: 'I am looking for food for my children but there is nothing,'" Lazzarini posted on X.
"How can one respond to such a desperate message? It's a shameful situation that doubles feelings of helplessness," he added.
Lazzarini revealed that UNRWA has food supplies outside Gaza sufficient for three months for Gaza's population, but "we have not been allowed to bring in any aid since March 2."
"Inaction is complicity that costs us our humanity," Lazzarini stated, emphasizing the need for political will to force Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Deaths of civilians seeking aid have become a regular occurrence in Gaza, with authorities blaming Israeli fire as crowds facing chronic shortages of food and other essentials flock in huge numbers to aid centers.
The UN said earlier this month that nearly 800 aid-seekers had been killed since late May, including on the routes of aid convoys.
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