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GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces opened fire on crowds of Palestinians trying to collect humanitarian aid in the war-torn Palestinian territory on Sunday, killing 73 people and wounding dozens more.
At least 67 were killed as truckloads of aid arrived in the north, while six others were reported shot near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, where dozens of people lost their lives just 24 hours earlier.
The UN World Food Programme said its 25-truck convoy carrying food aid “encountered massive crowds of hungry civilians which came under gunfire” near Gaza City, soon after it crossed from Israel and cleared checkpoints.
Israel’s military disputed the death toll and said soldiers had fired warning shots “to remove an immediate threat posed to them” as thousands gathered near Gaza City.
Deaths of civilians seeking aid have become a regular occurrence in Gaza, with the authorities blaming Israeli fire as crowds facing chronic shortages of food and other essentials flock in huge numbers to aid centers.
The UN said earlier this month that nearly 800 aid-seekers had been killed since late May, including on the routes of aid convoys.
In Gaza City, Qasem Abu Khater, 36, told AFP he had rushed to try to get a bag of flour but instead found a desperate crowd of thousands and “deadly overcrowding and pushing.”
“The tanks were firing shells randomly at us and Israeli sniper soldiers were shooting as if they were hunting animals in a forest,” he added.
“Dozens of people were martyred right before my eyes and no one could save anyone.”
Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP the death toll was 67 and expected to rise while the WFP condemned violence against civilians seeking aid as “completely unacceptable.”
“Israeli forces’ gunfire” was responsible for the deaths in the south, he added.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the agency and other parties.
The army has maintained that it works to avoid harm to civilians, saying this month that it issued new instructions to its troops on the ground “following lessons learned” from a spate of similar incidents.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, leading to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 58,895 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday expressed his regret to Pope Leo XIV after what he described as a “stray” munition killed three people sheltering at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.
At the end of the Angelus prayer on Sunday, the pope slammed the “barbarity” of the Gaza war and called for peace, days after the Israeli strike on the territory’s only Catholic church.
The strike was part of the “ongoing military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza,” he added.
“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.”
The Catholic Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, held mass at the Gaza church on Sunday after traveling to the devastated territory in a rare visit on Friday.
Most of Gaza’s population of more than two million people have been displaced at least once during the war and there have been repeated evacuation calls across large parts of the coastal enclave.
On Sunday morning, the Israeli military told residents and displaced Palestinians sheltering in the Deir el-Balah area to move south immediately.
Israel was “expanding its activities” against Hamas around Deir el-Balah, “where it has not operated before,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.
The announcement prompted concern from families of hostages held since October 7, 2023 that the Israeli offensive could harm their loved ones.
Delegations from Israel and militant group Hamas have spent the last two weeks in indirect talks on a proposed 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and the release of 10 living hostages.
Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

TEHRAN: Iran has replaced the air defense systems damaged during its 12-day war with Israel last month, a senior army general said on Sunday according to state media.
Israel launched an unprecedented surprise bombing campaign against Iran in mid-June, prompting Tehran to respond with drone and missile attacks.
Israel’s strikes dealt a significant blow to the Islamic republic’s air defenses, which were repeatedly activated in the capital Tehran and across the country throughout the war.
“The Zionist enemy sought to destroy Iran’s defense capabilities, and some of our defense systems were damaged in that war,” army operations chief Mahmoud Mousavi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
“The damaged defense systems have now been replaced,” he added.
Iran’s air defense network includes systems like the domestically built Bavar-373 and Khordad-15, designed to counter missiles and aircraft. Iran also installed Russia’s S-300 air defense systems in 2016.
The war with Israel killed more than 1,000 people in Iran, while Iranian fire killed at least 28 people in Israel, according to authorities in each country.
Israel’s attacks targeted military infrastructure and nuclear facilities across Iran.
On June 22, Israel’s ally the United States also carried out unprecedented strikes on Iranian nuclear sites at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz.
The full extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear program remains unclear.
US President Donald Trump has insisted the sites were “completely destroyed,” but US media reports have cast doubt on the severity of the damage.
On Friday, NBC News, citing a military damage assessment, reported that only one of the three sites was mostly destroyed.
A ceasefire between Iran and Israel has been in effect since June 24.
After the truce was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to prevent Iran from rebuilding its nuclear capabilities, raising the prospect of renewed conflict.
Earlier in July, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel was formulating a plan to “ensure that Iran cannot threaten Israel again.”
Katz said the military had to maintain its “air superiority over Tehran, the ability to enforce restrictions on Iran and prevent it from rebuilding its capabilities.”