Media Report 2025.07.20
At least 36 shot dead near Gaza food site: hospital
Canberra Times / AAP | 20 July 2025
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9020190/at-least-36-shot-dead-near-gaza-food-site-hospital/
At least 36 people have been killed by Israeli fire while they were on their way to an aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip at dawn, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
The Israeli military said it had fired warning shots at suspects who approached its troops after they did not heed calls to stop, about a kilometre away from an aid distribution site that was not active at the time.
Gaza Strip resident Mohammed al-Khalidi said he was in the group approaching the site and heard no warnings before the firing began.
“We thought they came out to organise us so we can get aid, suddenly (I) saw the jeeps coming from one side, and the tanks from the other and started shooting at us,” he said.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed group which runs the aid site, said there were no incidents or fatalities there on Saturday and that it has repeatedly warned people not to travel to its distribution points in the dark.
“The reported IDF (Israel Defence Forces) activity resulting in fatalities occurred hours before our sites opened and our understanding is most of the casualties occurred several kilometres away from the nearest GHF site,” it said.
The Israeli military said it was reviewing the incident.
GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into the Gaza Strip, largely bypassing a United Nations-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians.
Hamas denies the accusation.
The UN has called the GHF’s model unsafe and a breach of humanitarian impartiality standards, which GHF denies.
On Tuesday, the UN rights office in Geneva said it had recorded at least 875 killings within the past six weeks in the vicinity of aid sites and food convoys in the Gaza Strip – the majority of them close to GHF distribution points.
Most of those deaths were caused by gunfire that locals have blamed on the Israeli military.
The military has acknowledged that civilians were harmed, saying that Israeli forces had been issued new instructions with “lessons learned”.
At least 50 more people were killed in other Israeli attacks across the enclave on Saturday, health officials said, including one strike that killed the head of the Hamas-run police force in Nuseirat in the centre of the Gaza Strip and 11 of his family members.
The Israeli military said that it had struck militants’ weapon depots and sniping posts in a few locations in the enclave.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1200 people, mostly civilians and taking 251 hostages back to the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military campaign against Hamas in the strip has since killed about 58,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians according to health officials, displaced almost the entire population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis, leaving much of the territory in ruins.
Israel and Hamas are engaged in indirect talks in Doha aimed at reaching a US-proposed 60-day ceasefire and a hostage deal mediated by Egypt and Qatar, although there has been no sign of any imminent breakthrough.
At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages are believed to still be alive.
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan was kidnapped from his kibbutz home and is held by Hamas, urged Israel’s leaders to make a deal with the militant group.
“An entire people wants to bring all 50 hostages home and end the war,” Zangauker said in a statement outside Israel’s defence headquarters in Tel Aviv.
“My Matan is alone in the tunnels,” she said, “He has no more time”.
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At least 32 Palestinians killed in Gaza as IDF fires on crowds seeking food
Witnesses say scenes near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid hubs in the south of the territory resembled a massacre
The Guardian | Donna Ferguson | 20 July 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/19/gaza-israel-palestinians-killed-idf-fires-on-crowds
At least 32 people were killed and more than 100 injured on Saturday morning when Israeli troops opened fire on crowds of Palestinians seeking food from two aid distribution hubs in southern Gaza, according to witnesses and hospital officials.
People on the scene described it as “a massacre”, and claimed Israel Defense Forces fired “indiscriminately” at the groups of Palestinians – reported to be mostly young men – who were making their way towards the hubs run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Most of the deaths, which civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal attributed to “Israeli gunfire”, occurred in the Teina area, about two miles from a GHF aid distribution centre east of Khan Younis.
Medical sources told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that many of the wounded are in a serious condition, while witnesses at the scene said many of the dead and injured were children and teenagers.
The Nasser hospital in Khan Younis received 25 bodies, as well as dozens of wounded people, while nine others were killed near a centre north-west of Rafah, the civil defence agency said.
Dr Atef al-Hout, director of Nasser hospital, described the situation as “an unprecedented number of casualties in a very short time”, warning that the actual death toll could be higher.
“We’re unable to provide adequate medical treatment as we lack equipment, medicine and personnel,” he told Haaretz.
In a statement, GHF, which was set up to replace the traditional UN-led aid distribution system in Gaza, said there were no incidents at or near its sites. It said the reported Israeli shootings occurred far from its sites and hours before they opened. “We have repeatedly warned aid seekers not to travel to our sites overnight and early morning hours,” the group said.
The Israeli military said it had fired “warning shots” near Rafah after a group of suspects approached troops and ignored calls to keep their distance. It said it was investigating reports of casualties, but noted the incident occurred overnight when the distribution centre was closed.
Mahmoud Mokeimar told Associated Press reporters he was walking with masses of people – mostly young men – towards the food hub. Troops fired warning shots as the crowds advanced, before opening fire on the marching people.
“It was a massacre,” he said. “The occupation opened fire at us indiscriminately.” He said he managed to escape but saw at least three motionless bodies lying on the ground, and many other wounded people fleeing.
Akram Aker said troops fired machine guns mounted on tanks and drones. He said the shooting happened between 5am and 6am.
“They encircled us and started firing directly at us,” he told AP. He said he saw many casualties lying on the ground.
Sana’a al-Jaberi, a 55-year-old woman, said she saw many dead and wounded as she fled the area.
“We shouted: ‘food, food’, but they didn’t talk to us. They just opened fire,” she said.
Four other witnesses also accused Israeli troops of opening fire, according to news agency AFP.
“They started shooting at us and we lay down on the ground. Tanks and Jeeps came, soldiers got out of them and started shooting,” said Tamer Abu Akar, 24.
More than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza are living through a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and the entire population is at risk of famine, according to food security experts, while distribution at the GHF sites has been described as “lethal chaos”.
Last Wednesday, 19 people were killed in a crush in a stampede near a GHF hub and one person was stabbed. GHF blamed the incident on Hamas, describing it as “a calculated provocation, part of a pattern of targeted efforts by Hamas and its allies to dismantle our life-saving operations”.
Dr Mohamed Saker, the head of Nasser’s nursing department, told AP that most of the people who died on Saturday were shot in the head and chest, and that some were placed in the already overwhelmed intensive care unit.
“The situation is difficult and tragic,” he said, adding that the hospital desperately needs medical supplies to treat the daily flow of casualties.
Israeli and Hamas negotiators have been discussing an interim truce in the Gaza war, which would see 10 surviving hostages and the bodies of 18 others returned to Israel in exchange for the release of a number of Palestinians.
On Friday, President Donald Trump said at a dinner that 10 hostages would “very shortly” be released from Gaza, but provided no further details.
Speaking to lawmakers at the White House, Trump – who has been predicting for weeks that a US-led ceasefire and hostage-release deal was imminent – said: “We got most of the hostages back. We’re going to have another 10 coming very shortly, and we hope to have that finished quickly.”
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Conflicting interests
Herald-Sun | Letters | 20 July 2025
Columnist Peta Credlin correctly identified the key element of anti-Semitism in Australia as a tactical partnership between recent immigrant bigotry and the destructive forces of cultural Marxism, complicated by the floundering of a government with conflicting interests and loyalties (“Albo fiddles while our synagogues are burning”, SHS, 13/7).
The allusion to the Roman Emperor Nero was quite appropriate, as the fires fitted his plans for what we now call urban renewal.
Electoral considerations and long-standing Socialist-Left dogma get in the way of this government’s duty to uphold the law and protect Jewish citizens, resulting in empty words and ambivalent responses.
It’s only now that Labor can use the term anti-Semitism without referring to a hitherto absent Islamophobia.
Special envoy Jillian Segal’s recommendations of enforcing existing laws and deporting spreaders of hate are now on the table, but the test of the Albanese government and the states will be their willingness to implement them.
We shouldn’t hold our breath.
John Morrissey, Hawthorn
Our Jewish population in many cases came here to escape the wars in the Middle East and live in peace. The Hamas sympathisers want to bring the war to our shores and attack the innocent. Everyone feels the pain of the Palestinians and Israelis who are caught up in war, but this anti-Semitic violence in our peaceful country must be dealt with swiftly and severely.
Ric, Lara
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