Hawzah News Agency- "For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the 'Gaza Humanitarian Foundation'. This morning, we have received information that dozens more people were killed and injured'', Volker Turk said in a statement.
"Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza, are unconscionable'', he added.
This militarized system "endangers lives and violates international standards" on aid distribution, as the UN has repeatedly warned, the human rights chief stressed.
He pointed to broader patterns of violence, forced displacement and threats, saying: “The threat of starvation, combined with 20 months of civilian killings and large-scale destruction, repeated forced displacements, intolerable and inhumane rhetoric and threats by the Israeli leadership to depopulate the Gaza Strip, also constitute elements of the most serious crimes under international law''.
Citing a 2024 judgment of the International Court of Justice, Turk recalled that the court had recognized “a real and imminent risk of irreparable harm to the rights of Palestinians in Gaza under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide''.
On May 27, Israel launched a controversial aid distribution mechanism with the support of the United States government, through an American group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Israel, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has waged a devastating offensive in Gaza since October 2023, killing nearly 54,500 Palestinians, most of them women and children. Aid agencies have warned of the risk of famine among the more than 2 million residents of the besieged area.
Source: Anadolu Agency
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