Humanitarian groups seek end to Israeli-backed aid system in Gaza
- Last updated: July 2, 2025 | 11:31
Over 150 international charities and humanitarian groups called Tuesday for disbanding a controversial Israeli- and US-backed system to distribute aid in Gaza because of chaos and deadly violence against Palestinians seeking food at its sites.
The bodies of 116 people killed by Israeli strikes were brought to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Tuesday afternoon.
The joint statement by groups including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty International came as at least 10 Palestinians were killed while seeking desperately needed food, witnesses and health officials said. Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 37 in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital.
"Tents, tents they are hitting with two missiles?” asked Um Seif Abu Leda, whose son was killed in the strikes. Mourners threw flowers on the body bags.
In other developments, Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, warned that his country would respond forcefully to the firing of a missile the military said originated from Yemen. Sirens sounded across parts of Israel, alerting residents to the attack and the launch of two projectiles from Gaza. All were intercepted by Israeli defense systems.
The missile launch marked the first attack by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels since the end of the 12-day war initiated by Israel with Iran. Katz said Yemen could face the same fate as Tehran.
Nasruddin Amer, deputy head of the Houthi media office, vowed on social media that Yemen will not "stop its support for Gaza ... unless the aggression stops and the siege on Gaza is lifted.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he planned to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump next week in Washington. Trump has signaled that he is ready for Israel and Hamas to wind down the war in Gaza.
Speaking to his Cabinet, Netanyahu did not elaborate on plans for the visit, except to say he will discuss a trade deal. Iran is also expected to be a main topic of discussion in Washington after Trump brokered a ceasefire between it and Israel.
More than 165 major international charities and non-governmental organizations called for an immediate end to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which the U.S. and Israel have backed to take over aid distribution in Gaza from a network led by the United Nations.
"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.
Their call was the latest sign of trouble for the GHF, a secretive initiative headed by an evangelical leader who is a close ally of Trump.
The GHF started distributing aid on May 26, following a nearly three-month Israeli blockade that pushed Gaza’s population of more than 2 million to the brink of famine.
The GHF has called for Israel's military to investigate allegations from Gaza’s Health Ministry that more than 500 Palestinians have been killed at or near its distribution centers over the past month. Last month, the organization said there has been no violence in or around its centers and that its personnel have not opened fire.
In a statement Tuesday, the organization said it has delivered more than 52 million meals.
"Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza,” it said.
Israel's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The GHF is the linchpin of a new aid system that wrested distribution away from aid groups led by the U.N. The new arrangement limits food distribution to a small number of hubs guarded by armed contractors. Four hubs are set up, all close to Israeli military positions. Palestinians often must travel long distances to them.
Israel demanded the alternative plan because it accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid. The U.N. and aid groups deny there is significant diversion. They reject the new mechanism, saying it allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles and is not effective.
Israel's military said it recently took steps to improve organization in the area.
Israel says it only targets fighters and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing the Palestinian group Hamas of hiding among civilians because they operate in populated areas.
At least 10 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Tuesday while seeking aid, hospitals said. Seven of the deaths occurred in Khan Younis. Three others occurred near the Netzarim corridor that separates northern and southern Gaza.
Dozens more were wounded, according to the Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp and the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, which received the casualties.
Thousands of starved Palestinians gather at night to take aid from passing trucks in the area of the Netzarim route.
Israel’s military late Tuesday warned residents to evacuate an additional area of Khan Younis, pushing them into an increasingly confined zone along the coast.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead have been women and children. The war was sparked by the October 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw 251 others taken hostage. Some 50 hostages remain, many of them thought to be dead.
Elsewhere, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the occupied West Bank said Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in the territory, including a 15-year-old, in separate events.
Israel's military said it was reviewing the shooting of the teen, saying it appeared to happen when people threw rocks toward soldiers. In the other death, military officials said a "suspicious individual” was seen trying to cross into Israel from the southern West Bank, prompting soldiers to open fire.
Associated Press