The Palestinian Centre For Human Rights (PCHR): The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have continued to kill starving Palestinians near aid distribution points established in areas under their control, turning these points into sites of death and humiliation. These acts occur while the IOF continue to commit mass killings and horrific crimes, including the killing of paramedics and journalists, as part of the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, now in its twentieth consecutive month.
Despite the fact that the aid distribution points established by the IOF and run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) have failed to offer humanitarian aid fairly to those in dire need, the IOF have continued to operate them, turning them into daily death zones.
Over the past few days, our staff have documented the killing of dozens and the injury of hundreds after the IOF opened fire on starving civilians near these distribution points.
According to our staff’s field documentation, in the early hours of 10 June 2025, the IOF killed 17 people and injured 224 others near the Netzarim corridor, south of Gaza City, while they were on their way to obtain aid from the distribution point established there.
At approximately 06:00 on Monday, 09 June 2025, the IOF opened fire at a large number of displaced people near al-‘Alam Square in al-Mawasi area, west of Rafah, while they were trying to reach the aid distribution point established by the IOF in Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, southwest of Rafah. As a result, 14 displaced people, including a woman, were killed, while 90 others sustained various injuries.
Eyewitnesses said that, upon IOF’s instructions, many armed Palestinians left from points under the IOF’s control and stationed themselves in the vicinity of al-‘Alam Square. They then forced the displaced people, who had gathered there to head to the aid distribution point, to stand in line and then opened fire on some of them, injuring them before retreating from the area.
In a similar crime, at approximately 05:00 on Sunday, 08 June 2025, Israeli gunboats, vehicles, and quadcopter drones opened fire on thousands of displaced people in the same area, northwest of Rafah. As a result, 12 displaced people, including a child and a deaf person, were killed, while 100 others sustained various injuries.
At around 06:00 on Saturday, 07 June 2025, the IOF opened fire on thousands of displaced people in the same area, northwest of Rafah. As a result, 8 displaced people, including two siblings, among them a woman, were killed, while 50 others sustained various injuries.
In another crime against paramedics, at approximately 23:00 on Monday, 09 June 2025, the IOF bombed three paramedics while they were retrieving dead bodies following an airstrike on a house near al-Mahata Mosque on Yafa Street, east of Gaza City. As a result, three paramedics identified as Hussein ‘Abed Soliman Muheisen (46), Director of Ambulance and Emergency Services in Gaza; Wael Maher Mohammed Al-‘Attar (38); and volunteer paramedic Bara’a Faris ‘Awad ‘Afaneh (18) were killed. Moreover, journalist Mo’men Rajab Riyadh Abu Al-Ouf (21), a photojournalist who had accompanied the paramedics to document the incident, was killed alongside them.
This crime is an integral part of Israel’s policy and a repeated pattern by IOF to target ambulance and civil defense crews while they are on a humanitarian mission to retrieve dead bodies and rescue injured people. These acts aim to undermine humanitarian efforts, obstruct rescue operations and deny the civilian population’s access to basic medical services. This constitutes a war crime under the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which criminalizes targeting persons and facilities protected under international humanitarian law.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the widespread killings committed by the IOF in the Gaza Strip, and reiterates that the IOF’s continued implementation of the current aid distribution mechanism, despite the chaos it has caused and the dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries inflicted since it began operating, indicates that its purpose is not to provide relief to the besieged and starving people in the Gaza Strip, but rather to turn it into a death trap and sites of humiliation and dehumanization , as part of a systematic and unprecedented starvation policy implemented by the IOF against Palestinian civilians for several months.
In light of this, PCHR urges the international community to exert pressure on Israel to abolish this mechanism that requires civilians to move to dangerous areas under IOF’s control, to resume aid entry and allow the international organizations to distribute aid across areas of displacement in addition to allowing the free and uninterrupted entry of goods.
PCHR reiterates its call for immediate and serious measures to halt the ongoing genocide and ensure that Israeli officials are held accountable for their crimes before international justice. It also calls on the States Parties to the Genocide Convention to fulfill their legal and moral obligations and take urgent action to protect Palestinian civilians from mass killings and grave human rights violations.
