Gaza civil defence says Israeli fire kills 93 aid seekers

At least 93 Palestinians were killed while trying to reach food in Gaza on Sunday, the territory’s health ministry says, while Israel’s military is reportedly planning to intensify its operations against Hamas.

Israel’s military has reportedly drawn up plans to further intensify its operations against Hamas, with sources describing it to ­Israeli media as “the plan for taking over Gaza”.

The plans, drawn up by Israeli Defence Forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, are designed to be implemented if hostage talks collapse or in the case of a truce if no deal is reached to end the war following the 60-day ceasefire, Israel’s Channel 12 reported.

The plan is an alternative to the controversial “humanitarian city” for Rafah proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which Mr Zamir has described as a “strategic mistake”, according to the Israel Hayom newspaper.

The proposal reportedly calls for the IDF to capture and hold much more territory in the Gaza Strip than it currently holds, with the military gradually taking more ground each day to show Hamas what it’s losing.

However, the Israel Hayom report said the plan would have the IDF encircle most parts of Gaza, and not take over the entire enclave.

The newspaper also said Mr Netanyahu had prevented Mr Zamir from presenting the proposal to the security cabinet and blocked a smaller group of ministers, whom the IDF chief briefed, from deliberating on while hostage talks with Hamas continue.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces opened fire on crowds of Palestinians trying to collect humanitarian aid in the war-torn territory on Sunday, killing 93 people and wounding dozens more.

Eighty were killed as truckloads of aid arrived in the north, while nine others were reported shot near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, where dozens of people lost their lives just 24 hours earlier.

Four were killed near another aid site in Khan Yunis, also in the south, agency spokesman Mahmud Basal told AFP.

The UN World Food Program said its 25-truck convoy carrying food aid “encountered massive crowds of hungry civilians which came under gunfire” near Gaza City, soon after it crossed from Israel and cleared checkpoints.

Israel’s military disputed the death toll and said soldiers had fired warning shots “to remove an immediate threat posed to them” as thousands gathered near Gaza City.

The UN said earlier this month that nearly 800 people seeking aid had been killed since late May, including on the routes of aid convoys.

Palestinians carry sacks of humanitarian aid unloaded from trucks convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday. Picture: AP

The WFP condemned violence against civilians seeking aid as “completely unacceptable”.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the agency and other parties.

The army says it works to avoid harm to civilians, and that this month it issued new instructions to its troops on the ground “following lessons learned” from a spate of similar incidents.

Israel on Sunday withdrew the residency permit of Jonathan Whittall, head of the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs office in Israel, who has repeatedly condemned the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in a post to X, accused Mr Whittall of spreading lies about the war in Gaza.

Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed to Pope Leo XIV his regret after what he described as a “stray” munition killed three people sheltering at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.

At the end of the Angelus prayer on Sunday, the Pope slammed the “barbarity” of the Gaza war and called for peace, days after the Israeli strike on the territory’s only Catholic church.

Palestinians flee Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on Sunday, July 20, 2025, after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders. Picture: AP

The strike was part of the “ongoing military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza”, he added.

The Catholic Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, held mass at the Gaza church on Sunday after travelling to the devastated territory in a rare visit on Friday.

On Sunday morning, the Israeli military told residents and displaced Palestinians sheltering in the Deir el-Balah area to move south immediately due to imminent operations in the area.

The displacement order was “another devastating blow to the already fragile lifelines keeping people alive across the Gaza Strip”, the UNOCHA said on Sunday.

According to the aid agency, 87.8 per cent of Gaza is now under displacement orders or within Israeli militarised zones, leaving “2.1 million civilians squeezed into a fragmented 12 per cent of the Strip, where essential services have collapsed”. The army’s latest announcement prompted concern from families of hostages held since October 7, 2023 that the Israeli offensive could harm their loved ones.

Delegations from Israel and militant group Hamas have spent the past two weeks in indirect talks on a proposed 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and the release of 10 living hostages.

Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

With AFP