Starving civilians in northern Gaza lured to aid sites and executed – the brutal pattern of Israel’s genocide
Palestinians carry aid supplies that entered Gaza through Israel, amid a hunger crisis, Beit Lahia in northern Gaza 20 July 2025
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports on 20 July 2025:
The Israeli army has committed one of its most heinous massacres against starving civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in northern Gaza. According to Euro-Med Monitor field documentation, Israeli forces killed 80 people and injured dozens more today. The occupation army ordered the civilians to approach aid trucks with their hands raised—a clear sign of surrender—and then opened fire on them without provocation.
Euro-Med Monitor’s team documented Israeli soldiers opening fire at civilians as they neared the route used by aid trucks north of Gaza City. This deliberate killing, committed without any military necessity, reflects an unprecedented level of brutality and constitutes a clear act of genocide aimed at eliminating the Palestinian population through a series of crimes, including intentional killings, starvation, and forced displacement.
According to information gathered by Euro-Med Monitor’s field team, thousands of desperate civilians, driven by days of total flour shortages, headed early on Sunday to the Al-Waha area in northwest Gaza City after reports circulated that flour-laden trucks had entered via the Zikim crossing. In a desperate attempt to feed their families, many individuals rushed to the site.
Around 200 civilians complied. As they neared the aid trucks, Israeli forces suddenly opened heavy fire directly at their heads, instantly killing dozens. Others were left crawling, wounded, and bleeding
When the first groups arrived, Israeli tanks were already stationed in the area. Soldiers then used loudspeakers to command: “Raise your hands and walk in front of the tanks—those who want flour, come forward.” Around 200 civilians complied. As they neared the aid trucks, Israeli forces suddenly opened heavy fire directly at their heads, instantly killing dozens. Others were left crawling, wounded, and bleeding. The massacre left 80 dead and more than 520 injured, many of whom are in critical condition.
In a separate incident, Israeli forces shot and killed six more starving civilians near a food distribution point run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah as people attempted to access aid.
Notably, these attacks coincide with the peak of mass starvation across the Gaza Strip, where deaths from malnutrition are now documented and dozens have been hospitalised due to exhaustion and lack of food. Israel is deliberately using aid deliveries and distribution sites as death traps to lure in starving civilians—part of a systemic pattern of intentional killing, deprivation, and collective humiliation that flagrantly violates international law.
Euro-Med Monitor emphasises that the targeting of civilians attempting to access food, combined with the use of starvation as a weapon of war, constitutes grave breaches of international humanitarian and criminal law, including war crimes under the Rome Statute, namely: wilful killing, targeting civilians, and starvation as a method of warfare.
The widespread and systematic nature of these violations meets the legal threshold for crimes against humanity, including murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts causing severe suffering or injury. These crimes are being committed as part of a large-scale, organised attack on the civilian population.