On the morning of Sunday, 20 July 2025, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed 81 Palestinians, including 11 children, and injured hundreds of others while they were attempting to obtain small amounts of aid in northwestern Gaza City. This crime took place amid a deepening humanitarian catastrophe, as Israel continues to use starvation as a key tool in its ongoing genocide committed against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

This crime indicates that the IOF continue to turn every attempt to obtain food in the Gaza Strip into a massacre. Every aid distribution point, aid truck, market, and field kitchen are turned by the IOF into open sites of mass killings. The thousands of civilians who had gathered in that area posed no security threat or danger. They were simply searching for food to protect themselves and their children from starving to death. Despite that, the IOF opened fire and fired shells at them, in a clear continuation of a systematic policy targeting starving civilians.

The new crime occurred at approximately 08:00 on Sunday, when Israeli gunboats, military tanks, quadcopter drones, and soldiers stationed behind sand berms directly opened heavy fire on crowds of innocent civilians who were waiting from dawn hours the entry of humanitarian aid trucks via Zikim crossing on the coastal street, northwest of Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip. As a result, 81 people, including 11 children, were killed, and 374 others, including 7 children, were injured. Reports also indicate that some remain missing, as efforts to recover them were impossible amid the IOF’s intense gunfire and bombardment in the area. Additionally, the IOF arrested and detained dozens of people, some of whom were released after several hours.

According to information and testimonies collected by PCHR’s staff, thousands of starving civilians gathered from dawn on Sunday in northwestern Gaza City, waiting for aid trucks to enter, hoping to obtain a morsel of food. After the Israeli side conducted a security check on the trucks, and while civilians were crowding around them, they were directly targeted by the IOF, despite posing no threat or danger to the IOF stationed in their military tanks and behind sand berms.

In this regard, the World Food Programme (WFP) reported that a 25 truck WFP convoy carrying vital food assistance crossed the Zikim heading to northern Gaza Strip. Shortly after passing the final checkpoint beyond the Zikim crossing into Gaza, the convoy encountered large crowds of civilians anxiously waiting to access desperately needed food supplies. As the convoy approached, the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire, killing many and injuring others with life-threatening injuries.¹

One of the injured said to PCHR’s researcher:

“The area was crowded with hundreds of people. We had been lying on the ground since the early hours of dawn, hoping to get a bag of flour or some canned food to feed our starving children. We posed no threat; we were simply waiting for food… we came under heavy gunfire from all directions. We didn’t know where to run. I dropped to the ground for cover, looked around, and was shocked to see bodies lying everywhere. I tried to stand but couldn’t. I felt pain in my leg and realized that I had been injured. I then started crawling away from the many bodies.”

In his testimony to PCHR’s staff, Mohammed Maher Lubbad, one of the survivors, stated:

“This was the first time I decided to go to get a bag of flour. When I arrived in al-Sudaniyya area, I joined a group of people. Just a few minutes later, an artillery shell fell on a large crowd in the middle of the street, followed by heavy gunfire from tanks and drones. Everyone dropped to the ground, trying to find shelter behind anything, whether a damaged wall, a pile of sand, or even the remains of destroyed buildings. I saw a number of injured people; one was injured in the abdomen and the other in the leg. They were bleeding, and no one could help them due to the ongoing gunfire. Warplanes were hovering at a low altitude, making a terrifying noise that incited fear and panic among us.  About ten minutes later, the shooting stopped, and the bodies of those killed and injured were placed on animal-drawn carts or tuk-tuks. People rushed again toward what we thought were the aid trucks, only to later discover that the mist we thought was flour was actually smoke deliberately created by the tanks. As we approached the trucks, gunfire resumed, forcing us to drop to the ground once again in an exposed area, with no protection but our own bodies. We crawled for a long distance until we reached a relatively safe area near “Bianco Resort.” Moments later, an Israeli gunboat appeared off the shore, inciting fear among the crowds and forcing them to flee once again under a barrage of ammunition. Despite the danger, I insisted on staying in the area, hoping to return with a bag of flour for my family who was waiting for me, especially my baby girl. When the second batch of trucks arrived, I found that most of them were loaded with the bodies of those killed and injured, while others were placed on donkey-drawn carts or tuk-tuks covered with flour mist and the victims’ blood. After seeing this horrific scene, I decided to return to my wife and daughter, realizing that another attempt could be suicidal amid the ongoing massacres.”

This crime is not an isolated incident but rather a new episode in an escalating series of mass killings targeting civilians as they seek to secure a livelihood. The IOF have killed nearly a thousand people and injured more than 6,000 others near aid distribution points they operate, amid a worsening humanitarian situation and unprecedented levels of famine.

Since 02 March, the IOF have intensified the siege on the Gaza Strip, preventing the entry of food, medical, and humanitarian supplies, and leaving thousands of trucks stranded at the Rafah crossing. This deliberate policy aims to subjugate the population and impose living conditions that make human life impossible. Starvation here is not an unintended outcome of the war, but rather a deliberate Israeli policy aimed at compelling the population to surrender and submit, either by causing death through hunger or by shooting those who attempt to survive and forcing the remaining residents to migrate outside the Gaza Strip.

PCHR reiterates its warning that the Gaza Strip has actually entered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, as thousands and potentially tens of thousands of civilians are facing imminent risk of death due to deadly hunger in the coming days.

In this regard, the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 18 deaths from starvation in Gaza over the past 24 hours, noting that a total of 86 people, including 76 children and 10 adults, have died due to famine and malnutrition.²

PCHR holds the international community, including all relevant agencies, fully and directly responsible, and calls for an immediate and effective intervention to stop the ongoing genocidal policy of starvation. It urges the international community to compel Israel to open crossings, allow the unrestricted and immediate entry of all supplies, ensure the establishment of safe humanitarian corridors, and hold all the perpetrators accountable for these crimes that are threatening the extermination of an entire generation.

PCHR calls on the United Nations and its bodies, especially the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, to take urgent action by conducting a comprehensive field assessment of the situation in the Gaza Strip, and not to wait for Gaza to be officially declared a Phase 5 famine area.

PCHR calls on the international community to immediately halt the policy of starvation, implement urgent protection mechanisms for the civilian population, and hold accountable all those involved in and responsible for ordering the commission of these repeated crimes.

1.  World Food Programme, Official Page on X platform, Press Release, 20/7/2025. Link ↩︎
2. Palestinian Ministry of Health, official Telegram account, 20 July 2025. Link ↩︎