Gaza [Palestine], July 21: Among the 86 people who died due to the famine, 76 were children, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a press release from the Gaza Health Authority.
Gaza's health ministry has warned that what is happening in the enclave, home to more than 2 million people, is a "silent massacre", saying that some 17,000 children are suffering from severe malnutrition in Gaza . It has demanded the immediate opening of border crossings to allow food and medicine to enter.
"We are dying, our children are dying and there is nothing we can do to stop it," AFP quoted Ziad Musleh, a 45-year-old father displaced from northern Gaza to the city of Nuseirat in central Gaza.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) wrote on social media X that "the Israeli regime is starving civilians in Gaza, including one million children." UNRWA called for the lifting of Israel's blockade of Gaza .
Gaza's civil defense agency accused Israeli forces of opening fire on a crowd of Palestinians trying to receive humanitarian aid in Gaza on July 20, killing 93 people and wounding dozens, according to AFP.
Among them, 80 people were killed when trucks carrying aid arrived in northern Gaza, while nine people were shot dead near an aid point near the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where dozens had been killed in the previous 24 hours, according to AFP.
Four people were also killed near another aid station in the city of Khan Yunis, also in southern Gaza, AFP reported, citing Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmud Basal.
The UN World Food Programme said its convoy of 25 trucks carrying aid was "confronted by crowds of starving civilians and shot at" near Gaza City in northern Gaza, shortly after entering from the Israeli border and passing through checkpoints.
The Israeli military denied the accusation, saying its soldiers only fired warning shots "to eliminate an immediate threat" as thousands gathered near Gaza City, AFP reported.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
