85 more Palestinians seeking aid killed in Gaza as Israel widens evacuation orders
- Last updated: July 20, 2025 | 21:26
At least 85 Palestinians were killed while trying to reach food at locations across Gaza on Sunday, the territory's Health Ministry said, on the deadliest day yet for aid-seekers in over 21 months of war.
There was new alarm as Israel's military issued evacuation orders for areas of central Gaza, one of the few areas where it has rarely operated with ground troops and where many international organizations trying to distribute aid are located.
One aid group said several groups' offices were told to evacuate immediately. There was no immediate Israeli comment on that.
The largest death toll was in devastated northern Gaza, where living conditions are especially dire.
At least 79 Palestinians were killed while trying to reach aid entering through the Zikim crossing with Israel, Zaher Al Waheidi, head of the Health Ministry's records department, told The Associated Press.
The UN World Food Programme said 25 trucks with aid had entered for "starving communities" when it encountered massive crowds that came under gunfire.
The ministry, which says more than half of the dead have been women and children, is part of the Hamas government. But the UN and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
The shootings occurred near hubs operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which launched operations in May. The US and Israel seek to replace the traditional UN-led aid distribution system in Gaza, asserting that Hamas fighters siphon off supplies. The UN denies the allegation.
While GHF says it has distributed millions of meals to hungry Palestinians, local health officials and witnesses say Israeli army fire has killed hundreds of people as they try to reach the hubs. GHF’s four sites are in military-controlled zones.
Israel's army, which isn't at the sites but secures them from a distance, said Saturday that it fired warning shots near Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, after a group of suspects approached troops and ignored calls to keep their distance. It said the incident occurred overnight when the distribution site was closed.
GHF said that there were no incidents at or near its sites and added, "we have repeatedly warned aid seekers not to travel to our sites overnight and early morning hours."
Most of Saturday’s deaths occurred as Palestinians massed around 3 kilometers (2 miles) from a GHF aid distribution center near the southern city of Khan Younis.
Mahmoud Mokeimar said that he was walking with masses of people, mostly young men, toward the hub. Troops fired warning shots, and then opened fire.
"The occupation opened fire at us indiscriminately,” he said. He said that he saw at least three motionless bodies on the ground and many wounded people fleeing.
Akram Aker, another witness, said that troops fired machine guns mounted on tanks and drones between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.
"They encircled us and started firing directly at us,” Aker said. He said he saw many casualties on the ground.
Sanaa al-Jaberi said that there was shooting after the site opened as people seeking aid broke into a run.
"Is this food or death? Why? They don’t talk with us, they only shoot us,” she said, and showed off her empty bag.
Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said that it received 25 bodies. Seven other people, including one woman, were killed in the Shakoush area, hundreds of meters or yards north of another GHF hub in Rafah, the hospital said.
Dr. Mohamed Saker, the head of Nasser's nursing department, said that it received 70 wounded people. He told The Associated Press that most people were shot in the head and chest.
"The situation is difficult and tragic,” he said, adding that the facility lacks medical supplies. Some of the wounded, including a child, were treated on the floor. One boy stood patiently, holding up a blood bag for someone on a stretcher.
Meanwhile, Fares Awad, head of the Health Ministry's ambulance and emergency service in northern Gaza, said that two people were killed in Gaza City when an airstrike hit a tent in a camp sheltering displaced families.
In central Gaza, Al-Awda Hospital said that 12 people were killed in an airstrike including police official Omar Aqel. Two children, including an infant, and five women - all relatives of Aqel - were among the dead.
Al-Awda Hospital said that it also received two people killed by an Israeli strike on a group of people in Bureij, and that another strike on a group of people along Salah El Din street in central Gaza killed a child.
Another strike on a house in the Gaza City neighborhood of Sheikh Radwan killed at least four people, according to the Health Ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. A strike on a cart in Tal al-Hawa in northern Gaza killed another four people, the service said.
Israel's army had no comment on specific strikes, but said that it had struck around 90 targets throughout Gaza over the past day.
Gaza’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians are in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Distribution at GHF sites is often chaotic. Boxes of food are stacked on the ground and crowds surge in to grab whatever they can, according to witnesses and videos released by GHF.
Hamas triggered the 21-month war when the Palestinian group Hamas stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. Fifty remain, but fewer than half are thought to be alive.
Israel and Hamas have been holding ceasefire talks in Qatar, but international mediators say there have been no breakthroughs.
"After 652 days, it is time to do what is right for Israel: Bring all 50 hostages home and end this war,” Efrat Machikawa, a relative of released hostage Gadi Moses, told the weekly rally in Tel Aviv.
Thousands of people later marched to the local branch of the US Embassy to demand a ceasefire deal.
In the occupied West Bank, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visited the Palestinian Christian village, Taybeh, where residents say extremist Israeli settlers set fire to the Church of St. George on July 9.
Huckabee, an evangelical Christian who is normally strongly supportive of Israel, condemned the attack.
"To commit an act of sacrilege by desecrating a place that is supposed to be a place of worship - it's an act of terror and it's a crime,” he said.
The West Bank has experienced a surge in settler violence since the start of the war in Gaza. Palestinians say Israeli security forces have done little to stop the violence, and few settlers have been punished.
Associated Press