Mass Killing Of Aid Seekers In Gaza: Israel Accused Of Deliberate Starvation, Genocide, And War Profiteering.

More than 93 Palestinians were killed in a single day across the Gaza Strip on Friday, many of them civilians seeking food at aid distribution points, according to local health officials and international monitors. The attacks, carried out by Israeli air and artillery strikes, have reignited global outrage and sharpened allegations that Israel is weaponising hunger, systematically targeting civilians, and carrying out what UN experts now openly describe as “one of the most cruel genocides in modern history.”

In multiple targeted strikes from Khan Younis to Gaza City, Israeli forces bombed aid queues, tent encampments, family homes, schools, and even Gaza’s only Catholic church. The pattern of attacks, repeatedly hitting areas designated for humanitarian relief and civilian shelter, has led to intensified scrutiny and accusations of premeditated mass murder under the guise of military operations.

“They are not just killing people, they are killing those who are begging for food,” said Dr. Youssef Abu Al-Naja, a surgeon at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. “Every day, ambulances bring in bodies of people with empty hands and empty stomachs. These are not fighters. These are starving civilians.”

Aid Lines Become Killing Fields:

One of the day’s most gruesome massacres took place near the al-Tahlia roundabout in Khan Younis, where 15 Palestinians were killed and at least 90 were injured while queuing for humanitarian aid. Eyewitnesses described scenes of carnage.

“The plane flew over us, and seconds later we were covered in fire and blood,” said Umm Fadi, a 45-year-old mother of four who survived the blast. “We came for food, and we got death.”

Journalists from Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye verified footage showing mangled bodies scattered across the street. Many of the victims were women and children.

In al-Mawasi, a supposed “safe zone,” Israeli artillery and airstrikes targeted tent encampments, killing at least eight civilians, many from the same family, and injuring dozens more. Tents near Tiba Towers and the British field hospital were also hit, resulting in more fatalities, including two young children.

“There is no such thing as a safe zone,” said Abu Samer, a displaced man whose family tent was destroyed. “Every place Israel tells us to go becomes a graveyard.”

Further attacks on the Khan Younis beachfront killed four more civilians, most of them women and children, as they slept.

Church Bombed, Shelters Flattened, Homes Turned To Rubble:

Adding to the list of atrocities, Israeli forces bombed Gaza’s only Catholic church, killing at least three people and injuring ten more. The church had been sheltering displaced families.

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem issued a rare and direct condemnation, calling the strike a “barbaric violation of international law and human dignity.” The Vatican has reportedly demanded an international investigation.

Elsewhere in al-Bureij refugee camp, four Palestinians were killed in a nighttime bombing of a home. In al-Sabra, south of Gaza City, three more civilians died after their residence was directly hit. A school used as a shelter for displaced families was also struck, although the full casualty count is still unknown.

Deliberate Starvation As A Weapon Of War:

Friday’s bloodshed marks another chapter in what human rights groups describe as a systematic Israeli campaign of enforced famine, described by Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, as “one of the most cruel genocides in modern history.”

“Gaza has become a death trap,” Albanese said in her latest address to the UN Human Rights Council. “Israel’s so-called humanitarian aid corridors are engineered to kill or force the flight of a bombarded, starved, and emaciated population.”

Albanese revealed that over 200,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured since October 2023, a figure she described as “a gross underestimate.” Independent estimates by groups like Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Save the Children suggest the real toll may be significantly higher, with thousands more buried under rubble or dying from disease and untreated wounds.

“Israel is using starvation as a method of warfare,” said Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s director for Israel and Palestine. “That’s a war crime under international law. And they are committing it with impunity.”

Weapon Testing And Corporate Profiteering:

Albanese’s report also sheds light on how Israel and its defence industry have turned Gaza into a “testing lab” for cutting-edge weapons.

“Arms companies have turned near-record profits by equipping Israel with munitions used to unleash 85,000 tons of explosives, six times the power of Hiroshima, on a densely populated civilian enclave,” she said.

She accused Israel of using the war to test new drone systems, AI-guided munitions, facial recognition surveillance, and radar tracking technologies. These tools are then marketed as “battle-tested” to international clients, including NATO countries.

A recent investigation by +972 Magazine and The Guardian confirmed that several Israeli weapons firms have seen their stock prices surge, as contracts flood in from buyers eager to acquire combat-tested hardware.

Mercenaries And U.S. Complicity:

Perhaps the most explosive revelation came from former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who accused U.S.-linked armed groups of killing Palestinian civilians during aid distributions.

“These are not accidents. These are killings carried out by trained, armed personnel, including private contractors from Western countries,” Borrell said.

Eyewitnesses in Khan Younis and Rafah reported seeing English-speaking armed men in tactical gear at several aid sites, reportedly coordinating with Israeli forces or operating under Israeli command.

An open-source investigation by The Intercept and Forensic Architecture identified multiple instances of U.S.-made surveillance balloons, tactical drones, and rifle casings found near massacre sites, implicating Western complicity in the chain of command.

International Inaction, Civil Society Response:

Despite the overwhelming evidence, the United States, the UK, and the European Union continue to block any meaningful accountability through the International Criminal Court or UN Security Council, shielding Israel with vetoes and diplomatic cover.

“In the face of genocide, so visible, so livestreamed, ignorance is no longer a defence,” Albanese said. “What comes next depends on all of us.”

She urged trade unions, professional bodies, civil society organisations, and ordinary citizens to push for boycotts, divestments, sanctions, and the prosecution of those responsible.

Several humanitarian NGOs, including Oxfam, Norwegian Refugee Council, and Doctors Without Borders, have condemned Israel’s actions as crimes against humanity and have called on Western governments to immediately suspend all military aid and arms sales to Israel.

Conclusion: A Manufactured Famine, A Marketed Genocide, And A Global Failure.

What unfolded in Gaza on July 16 was not a battlefield miscalculation or collateral damage; it was the methodical killing of civilians seeking food, shelter, and survival. It was not an aberration; it was the latest act in a deliberate and systematic campaign to starve, displace, and erase the Palestinian people under the cover of war and the silence of international diplomacy.

The Israeli military has repeatedly targeted aid distribution points, schools, hospitals, tents, churches, and homes, turning so-called “safe zones” into killing grounds. Humanitarian corridors have become ambush sites, where food convoys are transformed into bait and civilians into targets. These acts constitute more than war crimes; they reflect a premeditated strategy of extermination, increasingly described by international experts as genocide.

But this genocide does not operate only through bombs and bullets. Israel has also launched an aggressive information warfare campaign, deploying sophisticated psychological operations (psyops) to distort public perception, discredit critics, and control the media narrative.

Intelligence-linked disinformation units push false stories of “Hamas human shields” or “terror tunnels under every tent” to justify mass killings. Footage of massacres is either dismissed as fake or buried under selective reporting by outlets reliant on Israeli military briefings. Meanwhile, Palestinian journalists, already under siege, are systematically targeted, silenced, or killed. The result is a war not just on Palestinian lives, but on Palestinian truth.

“This is not a war on Hamas,” said Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, human rights advocate and widow of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi. “This is a war on Palestinian existence, physical, cultural, and historical.”

Indeed, Israel’s campaign is not merely about military dominance. It is about erasure of memory, identity, and indigeneity. Centuries-old cemeteries have been bulldozed. Mosques, churches, libraries, universities, and civil archives have been bombed or looted. Entire neighbourhoods are wiped from the map. Palestinian towns in Gaza are being reduced to ashes with no intention of return.

“What Israel is doing is not only genocidal in scale, it is memoricide,” said Dr. Ilan Pappé, Israeli historian and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. “It is the deliberate destruction of a people’s ability to remember and narrate their own history.”

This erasure is actively monetised. Israeli defence firms profit from using Gaza as a weapons testing ground, with drones, bombs, and AI surveillance marketed globally as “combat-proven.” Western governments continue to supply weapons, intelligence, and political immunity, ensuring the genocide is both sustained and exported.

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese made it plain:

“Gaza has become a laboratory for Israel’s military-industrial complex and a graveyard for Palestinian life. The world is not failing, it is choosing to enable this.”

The complicity is staggering. The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other NATO states provide not only the weapons but also the legal cover. They veto accountability at the UN Security Council, block referrals to the International Criminal Court, and suppress sanctions while demanding “context” for mass civilian killings.

The question now is no longer what is happening in Gaza. It is why the world refuses to act, and who stands to benefit from this industrial-scale destruction.

This is a genocide unfolding in real time, livestreamed for all to see, denied only by those who are profiting from it.

Until there is real accountability, criminal, political, and economic, this genocide will continue. Until arms sales are halted, war criminals are tried, and those financing and enabling this destruction are held to account, the killing will not stop.

This is not just Israel’s war. It is also Washington’s war. It is Berlin’s war. It is London’s war. It is a war fought with American missiles, European bombs, and global indifference.

Palestine is not dying. It is being killed, deliberately and systematically. The world is not watching helplessly; it is watching knowingly.

History will remember. The dead demand justice. The living demand accountability. And the future demands we do not look away.