Pope condemns Gaza war’s ‘barbarity’ as 93 reported killed by Israeli fire while waiting for food

Israeli forces open fire on hungry Palestinians near Gaza City in one of bloodiest incidents involving aid seekers

Pope Leo calls for end to 'barbarity of war' after strike on Gaza church (Photo via the Guardian)

Pope Leo XIV has condemned the “barbarity” of the war in Gaza and the “indiscriminate use of force” as Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 93 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food and Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for areas packed with displaced people.

Gaza’s health ministry said scores were killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks entering through the northern Zikim crossing with Israel. It was one of the highest reported death tolls among repeated recent cases in which aid seekers have been killed by Israeli fire.

Elsewhere nine others were reportedly shot dead near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, where dozens of people lost their lives just 24 hours earlier, while four were killed near another aid site in Khan Younis, spokesperson for the civil defence agency, Mahmud Basal, said.

Pope Leo XIV after delivering the Angelus prayer in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, on Sunday. (Photo: Vatican Pool/Getty Images)

Israel’s military said soldiers had shot at a gathering of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza who it claimed posed a threat, and it was aware of some casualties. But it said the numbers reported by officials in Gaza were far higher than its initial investigation found. It did not immediately comment on the incidents in the south.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that a WFP convoy of 25 trucks carrying food aid encountered “massive crowds of hungry civilians” near Gaza City who then came under gunfire.

“WFP reiterates that any violence involving civilians seeking humanitarian aid is completely unacceptable,” it said in a statement.

The director of al-Shifa hospital, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, told the Associated Press that since Sunday morning the hospital had received 48 people who were killed and 150 wounded while seeking aid from lorries expected to enter Gaza at the Zikim crossing. He could not say whether the dead had been killed by the Israeli army, armed gangs or both.

Before the reports of the latest Israeli shootings emerged, the pope called for “an immediate end to the barbarity of the war and for a peaceful resolution to the conflict” at the end of the Angelus prayer at Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence near Rome.

Palestinians are transported to hospitals after the incident in the Zikim area. (Photo: Anadolu/Getty Images)

The pope also spoke of his anguish over the Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church last week, which killed three people and injured 10. Among the injured was the parish priest, who used to receive daily calls from the late Pope Francis.

Israel has expressed “deep sorrow” and opened an investigation into the strike on the church, which was sheltering about 600 displaced people, most of them children and many with special needs.

“This act, unfortunately, adds to the ongoing military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza,” the pope said on Sunday.

“I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians, as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations.”

Also on Sunday, Israel withdrew the residency permit of Jonathan Whittall, head of office in Israel for the UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA), who has repeatedly condemned the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.

A Palestinian casualty of Israeli fire, who was seeking aid supplies, according to medics, is carried in the northern Gaza Strip. (Photo: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)

Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar, in a post to X, accused him of spreading lies about the war in Gaza without providing evidence.

There was also new alarm as Israel’s military issued evacuation orders for areas of central Gaza, packed with displaced people and one of the few areas where it has rarely operated with ground troops and where many international organisations attempting to distribute aid are located.

In central Deir al-Balah, residents said Israeli planes struck three houses in the area and dozens of families began leaving their homes, carrying some of their belongings, Reuters reported.

“They threw leaflets at us and we don’t know where we are going and we don’t have shelter or anything,” one man told the AFP news agency.

The displacement order was “another devastating blow to the already fragile lifelines keeping people alive across the Gaza Strip”, OCHA said on Sunday.

On Sunday the UN’s agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, said Israeli authorities were “starving civilians in Gaza”, including 1 million children.

Palestinians fleeing Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. (Photo: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)

“Unrwa has enough food for the entire population of Gaza for over three months stockpiled in warehouses,” it said in an earlier social media post that included photos of a warehouse in Arish, Egypt.

“Open the gates, lift the siege, allow Unrwa to do its work and help people in need among them 1 million children,” the agency said.

Unrwa said last week that babies were dying from “severe acute malnutrition”.

Israel banned all cooperation with Unrwa in Gaza and the West Bank, accusing the agency of having been infiltrated by Hamas, although an independent review found Tel Aviv had failed to provide evidence of its claims that Unrwa employees were members of terrorist organisations.

The agency had been the main distributor of aid in Gaza and provider of basic services, including health and education, to Palestinians across the region.

Injured Palestinians are transported to hospitals in the Zikim area. (Photo: Anadolu/Getty Images)

Since May aid has been largely distributed by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in place of the traditional UN-led system. Food has become scarce, and very expensive, since Israel imposed a blockade on 2 March.

The UN has said that as of 13 July, 875 people had been killed in recent weeks trying to get food, including 674 in the vicinity of GHF sites. The remaining 201 victims were killed on the routes or close to aid convoys run by the UN or its partners. Children have been killed fetching water for their families.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage.

At least 58,895 Palestinians have been killed and 140,980 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.

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