Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency said at least 37 people were killed by Israeli fire on Saturday, including 30 civilians who were waiting to collect aid.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 12 people were killed and nearly 200 wounded when Israeli forces allegedly opened fire on them as they gathered near a border crossing in northern Gaza that has been used for aid deliveries.
Six more people were killed and 30 wounded after Israeli troops targeted civilians assembling near an aid point in central Gaza, he asserted.
Strikes in central Gaza also resulted in multiple casualties, according to Bassal, while a drone attack near the southern city of Khan Younis killed at least three people and wounded several others.
Elsewhere, two nephews of senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza City, the Hamas mouthpiece al-Risala reported.
According to the report, Abd al-Salam al-Hayya and Mu’az Abd al-Salam al-Hayya were cutting firewood in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya when they were killed by Israeli shelling.
Hayya leads Hamas’ negotiating team and is based in Doha.
Palestinians hustle around a humanitarian parcel dropped by a military aircraft in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on August 9, 2025. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)
Thousands of Palestinians congregate daily near food distribution points in Gaza, including four managed by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been plagued by near-daily shooting incidents that have seen hundreds killed as they try to reach the GHF distribution centers.
The United Nations says more than 1,300 people have been killed trying to obtain aid supplies in the enclave since the GHF began operating in May, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.
The IDF has acknowledged firing warning shots at crowds that get too close to its soldiers, but called the UN tallies exaggerated, though it hasn’t provided alternate numbers.
The deadly incidents are not limited to GHF sites, and last week 20 people were said killed and dozens more were injured when a truck carrying goods and aid into the Strip overturned in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza.
In recent weeks, images of starving Palestinians, particularly children, have alarmed the world, ramping up international pressure on Israel to enable more aid into the coastal enclave, where war has been raging since the devastating Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Palestinians collect humanitarian aid packages from the United Arab Emirates after they were airdropped into Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza Strip, August 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Among the steps that Israel agreed to take to improve the humanitarian situation in the Strip was the resumption of airdrops into the Palestinian enclave.
While the decision was welcomed abroad as a step in the right direction, airdrops are only able to deliver a small fraction of what can enter Gaza by land, and pose safety risks for civilians due to the possibility of being hit by packages from above.
The IDF said aircraft from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Germany, the Netherlands, and — for the first time — Greece and Italy, had airdropped 106 pallets of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
Each pallet contains around one ton of food.
Since July 26, when Israel allowed airdrops to begin anew, over 1,000 humanitarian aid packages have been airdropped in the Gaza Strip by 12 countries, including Israel, according to the military. The packages the IDF airdropped were supplied by international aid groups.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 60,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
