At least 23 Palestinian aid seekers were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza on Sunday, according to hospital officials and witnesses in the Strip, where the Hamas-run health ministry also reported six people had died of starvation over the past 24 hours. Neither toll could be independently verified.

In addition, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said on X that one of its staff members had been killed and three others wounded in an Israeli strike on its headquarters in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis. There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.

The military said Sunday that it was pressing on with its campaign against Hamas, with troops operating under the 179th Reserve Armored Brigade having recently uncovered what it said was a 300-meter (1,000-foot) Hamas tunnel in the south of the enclave.

The IDF said the brigade, with combat engineering forces and the assistance of the Israeli Air Force, destroyed hundreds of other terror infrastructures in the area in the past two months, including booby-trapped buildings, observation, and sniper posts.

Numerous weapons, including rockets and rocket launchers, RPGs, and assault rifles, were also located, the army said.

Meanwhile, southern Gaza’s Nasser Hospital said Sunday that it had received bodies from multiple distribution sites, including eight from Teina, about three kilometers (1.8 miles) away from a Khan Younis site operated by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

A 300-meter-long Hamas tunnel was demolished during recent operations of the 179th Reserve Armored Brigade in the southern Gaza Strip, the military says.

The IDF says the brigade, with combat engineering forces and the Israeli Air Force, destroyed hundreds of other terror…

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Three Palestinian eyewitnesses, seeking food in Teina and Morag, told The Associated Press the shootings occurred on the route to the distribution points. They said they saw soldiers opened fire on hungry crowds advancing toward the troops.

Farther north in central Gaza, hospital officials described a similar episode, with Israeli troops opening fire in the morning toward crowds of Palestinians trying to reach GHF’s fourth and northernmost distribution point.

“Troops were trying to prevent people from advancing. They opened fire and we fled. Some people were shot,” said Hamza Matter, one of the aid seekers.

At least five people were killed and 27 wounded at GHF’s site near Netzarim corridor, Awda Hospital said.

Yousef Abed, among the crowds en route to a distribution point in Gaza, said he had come under indiscriminate fire and saw at least three people bleeding on the ground. “I couldn’t stop and help them because of the bullets,” he said.

According to the United Nations, more than 1,300 Palestinian aid seekers have been killed in Gaza since late May, including over 800 near sites run by the GHF, whose facilities are protected by American contractors, with IDF troops nearby.

The IDF has acknowledged firing warning shots at crowds that get too close to its soldiers but called the UN tallies exaggerated, without providing alternate numbers.

The GHF began operating in May after a nearly three-month aid blockade Israel had imposed on the Strip. The group seeks to circumvent Hamas in the distribution of aid, amid Israeli allegations that the terror group regularly hijacks deliveries under the existing UN-led aid system. The UN and other aid groups have rejected the GHF, accusing it of violating humanitarian principles of neutrality and of putting aid seekers in harm’s way.

The shootings reported near aid sites have come amid mounting international anger as the UN and aid agencies report skyrocketing starvation in Gaza.

According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, the six people who died of starvation in the past 24 hours brought the total of malnutrition-related deaths in the Strip to 175, including 93 children, since the war in Gaza was sparked by the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023. The World Health Organization reported 63 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza in July alone, including 25 of children of whom all but one was under the age of 5.

Israel denies reports of widespread starvation in the Strip and has blamed the United Nations and Hamas of impeding and hijacking aid deliveries, respectively. Last month, in response to the international outcry, Israel vowed to increase the flow of aid, institute 10-hour “humanitarian pauses” in fighting in three Gaza population centers, and facilitate international airdrops of food.

On Sunday, Egyptian state-affiliated news outlet Al-Qahera said in an unconfirmed report that two trucks carrying 107 tons of diesel fuel were set to enter Gaza, amid warnings by the Strip’s health ministry that fuel shortages have severely impaired hospital services.

Fuel shipments have been rare since Israel imposed its aid blockade on Gaza on March 2.

The blockade started hours after the collapse of the first phase of Israel’s latest ceasefire-hostage deal with Hamas, amid Israel’s refusal to negotiate the second phase, which would have required it to fully withdrawal its forces from the Strip.

Israel resumed hostilities against Hamas on March 18 and launched a renewed offensive in May with the stated goal of seizing 75 percent of the Gaza Strip.

Negotiations for a renewed ceasefire-hostage deal have faltered in recent days, and some of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition partners have reportedly advocated for Israel to take control of the entire territory.

The war began when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.

Hamas’s health ministry says more than 60,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far. The toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

Israel says it had 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.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 459.