The UN human rights office has said it had recorded at least 613 killings both at aid points run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief groups including the United Nations.
The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system. The United Nations has called the plan ‘inherently unsafe’ and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules.
“We have recorded 613 killings, both at GHF points and near humanitarian convoys – this is a figure as of June 27. Since then ... there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said in Geneva.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May and has repeatedly denied that incidents had occurred at its sites.
Of the 613 people killed, 509 were killed near the GHF distribution points, the OHCHR said.
The OHCHR said its figure is based on a range of sources such as information from hospitals, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs, and its partners on the ground. It said it is verifying further reports and cannot yet give a breakdown of where they were killed.
The GHF earlier said it has delivered more than 52 million meals to hungry Palestinians in five weeks, and said other humanitarian groups had ‘nearly all of their aid looted’.
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