Alexander Butler
The Independent / July 21, 2025
At least 85 Palestinians were killed queuing for aid on Sunday, according to hospitals and witnesses.
Pope Leo XIV has condemned the “barbarity” of the Gaza war and called out “collective punishment” as officials said dozens more Palestinians were killed queuing for aid on Sunday.
The pontiff renewed his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, asking the international community to respect international laws and the obligation to protect civilians.
It came as Gazan officials said 85 refugees were killed after witnesses claimed Israeli soldiers and tanks fired on crowds queuing for food in northern Gaza.
“I once again call for an immediate end to the barbarity of this war and for a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” Pope Leo XIV said.
“I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law, as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations.”
Around 67 of those killed were gunned down trying to reach aid entering through the Zikim crossing with Israel, according to the health ministry and local hospitals.
“Tanks surrounded us and trapped us as gunshots and strikes rained down. We were trapped for two hours,” said Ehab al-Zei, who had been waiting for flour. “I will never go back again. Let us die of hunger, it’s better.”
Israel’s military said soldiers had shot at a gathering of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza who posed a threat, and it was aware of some casualties.
On Saturday, witnesses said at least 32 Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops while queuing for food distributed by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The shootings occurred near hubs operated by the US and Israeli-backed GHF, which launched operations in May this year.
The US and Israel seek to replace the traditional UN-led aid distribution system in Gaza, asserting that Hamas militants siphon off supplies. The UN denies the allegation.
While the GHF says it has distributed millions of meals to hungry Palestinians, local health officials and witnesses say Israeli army fire has killed hundreds of people as they try to reach the hubs since May.
The organisation’s four sites are in military-controlled zones. Israel’s army secures them from a distance, but does not operate them.
Pope Leo also expressed his “deep sorrow” for the Israeli attack on the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, which killed three people and wounded 10 others, including the parish priest.
The shelling of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza also damaged the church compound, where hundreds of Palestinians have been sheltering from the Israel-Hamas war, now in its 21st month.
Israel expressed regret over what it described as an accident and said it was investigating. “We need to dialogue and abandon weapons,” the pope said earlier on Sunday, after presiding over Mass at the nearby Cathedral of Albano.
Gaza’s population of more than two million Palestinians are in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, now relying largely on the limited aid allowed into the territory.
Many people have been displaced multiple times. Hamas triggered the war when militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.
Fifty remain in Gaza, but fewer than half are thought to be alive. Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 58,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Alexander Butler is a General Reporter at The Independent
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Pope condemns Gaza war’s ‘barbarity’ as 93 reported killed by Israeli fire while waiting for food
Jennifer Rankin
The Guardian / July 20, 2025
Israeli forces open fire on hungry Palestinians near Gaza City in one of bloodiest incidents involving aid seekers.
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 93 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food and Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for areas packed with displaced people.
Gaza’s health ministry said scores were killed by Israeli fire while waiting for UN aid trucks entering through the northern Zikim crossing with Israel. It was one of the highest reported death tolls among repeated recent cases in which aid seekers have been killed by Israeli fire.
Elsewhere nine others were reportedly shot dead near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, where dozens of people lost their lives just 24 hours earlier, while four were killed near another aid site in Khan Younis, spokesperson for the civil defence agency, Mahmud Basal, said.
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 incidents in the south.
The UN World Food Program (WFP) said that a WFP convoy of 25 trucks carrying food aid encountered “massive crowds of hungry civilians” near Gaza City 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 the 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.
Before the reports of the latest Israeli shootings 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.”
Also on Sunday, Israel withdrew the residency permit of Jonathan Whittall, head of office in Israel for the UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA), who has repeatedly condemned the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar, in a post to X, accused him of spreading lies about the war in Gaza without providing evidence.
There was also new alarm as Israel’s military issued evacuation orders for areas of central Gaza, packed with displaced people and 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.
“They threw leaflets at us and we don’t know where we are going and we don’t have shelter or anything,” one man told the AFP news agency.
The displacement order was “another devastating blow to the already fragile lifelines keeping people alive across the Gaza Strip”, OCHA said on Sunday.
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.
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.
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.
Jennifer Rankin – Brussels correspondent for The Guardian
