United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has condemned Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, where relentless attacks continue and humanitarian aid remains severely restricted for over 2 million Palestinians facing starvation.
Speaking on Monday, Turk said Israel’s “means and methods of warfare are inflicting horrifying, unconscionable suffering on Palestinians in Gaza”.
Over the course of more than 19 months of Israeli assault, more than 55,300 people have been killed, the majority of them women and children.
His remarks came as at least 20 starving aid seekers were killed on Monday morning while waiting for food near aid distribution sites in Rafah in southern Gaza run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), backed by the United States and Israel. Three more aid seekers were reported killed in northern Gaza.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry on Monday, 338 starving aid seekers waiting for food aid near GHF distribution centers have been killed and 2,841 others injured by Israeli forces since the GHF began its operations on May 27.
At least nine others are still missing, the Ministry added.
“Israel has weaponised food and blocked lifesaving aid,” Turk said as he presented his annual report to the 59th Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“I urge immediate, impartial investigations into deadly attacks on desperate civilians to reach food distribution centres,” he added.
Disturbing, dehumanising rhetoric from senior Israeli government officials is reminiscent of the gravest of crimes.
In a statement, Gaza’s Government Media Office condemned the distribution sites as “human slaughterhouses” and “mass death traps”, accusing Israeli forces of luring desperate civilians to their deaths.
“These are war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the statement said, urging an independent international probe and an immediate suspension of GHF’s delivery model.
On March 2, Israel announced the closure of Gaza’s main crossings, cutting off food, medical and humanitarian supplies, worsening a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians, according to reports by human rights organisations who have accused it of using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinains.
After more than 80 days of total blockade, starvation, and growing international outrage, limited aid has allegedly been distributed by the GHF, a scandal-plagued organization backed by the U.S. and Israel, created to bypass the UN’s established aid delivery infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
Most humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have distanced themselves from GHF, arguing that the group violates humanitarian principles by restricting aid to south and central Gaza, requiring Palestinians to walk long distances to collect aid, and only providing limited aid, among other critiques.
One in five people in Gaza currently face starvation due to the Israeli blockade of food and aid while 93 percent are experiencing acute food shortages, according to a UN-backed assessment released last month.
Through the GHF, Palestinians in Gaza would receive a “basic amount of food,” according to Jake Wood, who resigned as executive director of the foundation two days before the GHF started its operations. Wood said a statement that the group’s plans could not be consistent with the “humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”