Pope Leo XIV has condemned the “barbarity” of the war in Gaza and the “indiscriminate use of force” as Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 85 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food.
The ministry said on Sunday that the victims had been killed in different locations, mostly in northern Gaza.
It said 69 of the dead had been killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks entering through the northern Zikim crossing with Israel.
Pope Leo XIV after delivering the Angelus prayer in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, on Sunday. Photograph: Vatican Pool/Getty Images
The UN World Food Programme said that shortly after entering Gaza, a WFP convoy of 25 trucks carrying food aid encountered “massive crowds of hungry civilians” who then came under gunfire.
“WFP reiterates that any violence involving civilians seeking humanitarian aid is completely unacceptable,” it said in a statement.
The director of al-Shifa hospital, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, told Associated Press that since Sunday morning the hospital had received 48 people who were killed and 150 wounded while seeking aid from lorries expected to enter Gaza at the Zikim crossing. He could not say whether the dead had been killed by the Israeli army, armed gangs or both.
Israel’s military said soldiers had shot at a gathering of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza who it claimed posed a threat, and it was aware of some casualties. But it said the numbers reported by officials in Gaza were far higher than its initial investigation found. It did not immediately comment on the incident in the south.
There was new alarm as Israel’s military issued evacuation orders for areas of central Gaza, one of the few areas where it has rarely operated with ground troops and where many international organisations attempting to distribute aid are located.
In central Deir al-Balah, residents said Israeli planes struck three houses in the area and dozens of families began leaving their homes, carrying some of their belongings, Reuters reported.
Palestinians are transported to hospitals after the incident in the Zikim area. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Before these reports emerged, the pope called for “an immediate end to the barbarity of the war and for a peaceful resolution to the conflict” at the end of the Angelus prayer at Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence near Rome.
The pope also spoke of his anguish over the Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church last week, which killed three people and injured 10. Among the injured was the parish priest, who used to receive daily calls from the late Pope Francis.
Israel has expressed “deep sorrow” and opened an investigation into the strike on the church, which was sheltering about 600 displaced people, most of them children and many with special needs.
“This act, unfortunately, adds to the ongoing military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza,” the pope said on Sunday.
“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.”
A Palestinian casualty of Israeli fire, who was seeking aid supplies, according to medics, is carried in the northern Gaza Strip. Photograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
On Sunday the UN’s agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, said Israeli authorities were “starving civilians in Gaza”, including 1 million children.
“Unrwa has enough food for the entire population of Gaza for over three months stockpiled in warehouses,” it said in an earlier social media post that included photos of a warehouse in Arish, Egypt.
“Open the gates, lift the siege, allow Unrwa to do its work and help people in need among them 1 million children,” the agency said.
Unrwa said last week that babies were dying from “severe acute malnutrition”.
Israel banned all cooperation with Unrwa in Gaza and the West Bank, accusing the agency of having been infiltrated by Hamas, although an independent review found Tel Aviv had failed to provide evidence of its claims that Unrwa employees were members of terrorist organisations.
The agency had been the main distributor of aid in Gaza and provider of basic services, including health and education, to Palestinians across the region.
Palestinians fleeing Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Photograph: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
Since May aid has been largely distributed by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in place of the traditional UN-led system. Food has become scarce, and very expensive, since Israel imposed a blockade on 2 March.
The UN has said that as of 13 July, 875 people had been killed in recent weeks trying to get food, including 674 in the vicinity of GHF sites. The remaining 201 victims were killed on the routes or close to aid convoys run by the UN or its partners. Children have been killed fetching water for their families.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Sunday in areas of central Gaza packed with displaced Palestinians, a sign of an imminent attack on neighbourhoods in Deir al-Balah, which has alarmed the families of Israeli hostages, who fear their relatives are being held there.
“Can anyone [promise] to us that this decision will not come at the cost of losing our loved ones?” the families said in a statement.
The Israeli military dropped leaflets from the sky ordering people in several districts in south-west Deir al-Balah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza have been sheltering, to leave their homes and head south.
Injured Palestinians are transported to hospitals in the Zikim area. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
“The [Israel] Defense Forces continues to operate with great force to destroy the enemy’s capabilities and terrorist infrastructure in the area,” the military said.
Israel’s forces have not yet entered these districts during the current conflict because they suspect that Hamas may be holding hostages there. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in captivity in Gaza are believed still to be alive.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage.
At least 58,895 Palestinians have been killed and 140,980 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.