Israeli forces kill 67 Palestinians seeking aid in northern Gaza, Hamas-run ministry says

The Israeli military has killed at least 67 people waiting for UN aid lorries in northern Gaza, the territory's Hamas-run health ministry says.

The UN World Food Programme said its 25-truck convoy "encountered massive crowds of hungry civilians which came under gunfire", soon after it crossed from Israel and cleared checkpoints.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that it had "fired warning shots" to remove "an immediate threat". It disputed the number of reported deaths.

On Saturday the ministry warned that extreme hunger was increasing in Gaza and growing numbers of people were arriving at its facilities "in a state of extreme exhaustion and fatigue".

"We warn that hundreds of people whose bodies have wasted away are at risk of imminent death due to hunger," it said. The UN has also said civilians in Gaza are starving and called for an urgent influx of essential goods.

On Sunday the ministry said it had recorded 18 deaths "due to famine" over the past 24 hours.

Many of the casualties from northern Gaza were taken to Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The medical director there, Dr Hassan al-Shaer, told BBC Arabic on Sunday the facility had been "overwhelmed".

Outside the hospital one woman told BBC Arabic that "the whole population is dying".

"Children are dying of hunger because they have nothing to eat. People are surviving on water and salt… just water and salt," she said.

In an updated death toll, Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli fire had killed a total of 93 people and wounded dozens more across Gaza on Sunday.

Eighty people were killed in northern Gaza, it said, while nine people were shot dead near an aid point in Rafah and four more near an aid point in Khan Younis, both in southern Gaza.

In Gaza City, Qasem Abu Khater told AFP he had attempted to get a bag of flour but instead found a desperate crowd and "deadly overcrowding and pushing".

"The tanks were firing shells randomly at us and Israeli sniper soldiers were shooting as if they were hunting animals in a forest," he said.

"Dozens of people were martyred right before my eyes and no one could save anyone."

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) condemned violence against civilians seeking aid as "completely unacceptable".

In a statement posted on X, the WFP said "malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment". "Nearly one person in three is not eating for days," it said.

There have been almost daily reports of Palestinians being killed while seeking food since late May. On Saturday at least 32 people were killed by Israeli gunfire near two aid distribution points in southern Gaza, according to the ministry.

Many of the incidents have taken place near sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which uses private security contractors to distribute aid from sites in Israeli military zones, but some have taken place near aid brought in by the UN.