US envoy to visit Gaza, as hospital says dozens killed seeking food

US special envoy Steve Witkoff will visit Gaza on Friday to inspect food distribution sites, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has confirmed.

Leavitt said Witkoff would visit the territory along with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and "secure a plan to deliver more food and meet with local Gazans to hear first-hand about this dire situation on the ground".

Witkoff, who is on a visit to Israel, also had a "productive" meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the press secretary added.

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said 111 people had been killed, 91 of them while seeking aid, in the 24 hours before Thursday midday.

A hospital director told the BBC that more than 50 Palestinians were killed and 400 others injured while waiting for food near a crossing in northern Gaza on Wednesday.

Footage showed casualties from the incident near the Zikim crossing being taken on carts to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Gaza's Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said Israeli forces fired at the crowds gathered around aid lorries. The Israeli military said troops fired "warning shots" but that it was "not aware of any casualties".

Israeli officials have threatened that if there is no progress in the coming days on a ceasefire and hostage release deal, then they may take new punitive steps against Hamas. Israeli media reported that those could include annexing parts of Gaza.

Shortly after his envoy's arrival in Israel, US President Donald Trump wrote on social media: "The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!"

Witkoff will visit Gaza a day after his meeting with Netanyahu, where they focused on "dilemmas" such as food and aid in Gaza, Leavitt said.

The announcement comes after reports that he would visit food distribution sites run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

In Gaza, the health ministry said on Thursday that 111 people had been killed and 820 others injured by Israel's military offensive in the last 24 hours.

In a separate statement, the ministry said two people had died of malnutrition in the past day, bringing the total number of malnutrition deaths since the start of the war to 159, including 90 children.

On Tuesday, UN-backed global food security experts warned that the "worst-case scenario of famine" was "currently playing out" among the 2.1 million population.

UN agencies have said there is man-made, mass starvation in Gaza and blamed Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies to Gaza. But Israel has insisted that there are no restrictions on aid deliveries and that there is "no starvation".

Despite that, four days ago it implemented measures that it has said are aimed at helping the UN and its partners collect aid from crossings and distribute it within Gaza, including daily "tactical pauses" in military operations in three areas and the creation of what it calls "designated humanitarian corridors".

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday that 43 aid packages containing food for residents in southern and northern Gaza had been airdropped, and "it would continue to work in order to improve the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip, along with the international community".

The UN's humanitarian office has said the tactical pauses do not allow for the continuous flow of supplies required to meet the immense needs of the population, and that desperately hungry crowds continue to offload supplies from lorries as they pass through Israeli crossings.

The director of al-Shifa hospital, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, told the BBC on Thursday morning that it had received the bodies of 54 people who were killed in the incident in the Zikim area on Wednesday, as well as 412 injured people.

On Wednesday night, the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency told AFP news agency that at least 30 people were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd waiting for aid there.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that its al-Saraya field hospital and al-Quds hospital in Gaza City had received a total of six dead and 274 injured from the same incident.

The IDF said in a statement that "dozens of Gazans was identified gathering around aid trucks in northern Gaza, and in close proximity to IDF troops operating in the area".

"The troops fired warning shots in the area, not directed at the gathering, in response to the threat posed to them," it added.

"According to an initial inquiry, the IDF is not aware of any casualties as a result of IDF fire. The details of the incident are still being examined."

International journalists are blocked by Israel from entering Gaza independently, so it is difficult to verify what happened.

However, one man interviewed by a local freelance journalist working for the BBC said he knew a teenage boy who was killed.

"In the current situation, there is no food or water. People go to get food from the Zikim area, where they are targeted. He went to bring flour but came back carried in the flour bag," he said.

"What was his fault? They sniped him in the middle of his head. He wasn't carrying a rock, or a weapon, or doing anything wrong. His only fault was being Palestinian and living in Gaza."

Abu Taha al-Kafarneh, a unemployed father of two who was the main breadwinner for his family, was also among the dead, another man told the BBC.

"He went to get a bag of flour to secure his food for the day... He didn't want to trade it, sell it, or profit from it like many of the looting merchants," he said.

He added: "They [Israel] claim they let food in, but instead increase the number of those killed and martyred as much as they can. The morgue is full."

On Wednesday morning, hospital sources told the BBC that six people were killed near an aid distribution centre run by GHF in the Rafah area.

The IDF told the BBC a "gathering of suspects" it said posed a threat to its troops were told to move away, and subsequently the army fired "warning shots" at a distance of "hundreds of metres away" from the site.

The military also said that "an initial review suggests that the number of casualties reported does not align with the information held by the IDF".

The GHF said no killings took place at or near its sites on Wednesday.

According to the UN human rights office, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food aid since the GHF began operating in late May. It said most of them were killed by the Israeli military.

The office said on Thursday that at least 859 of them had been killed in the vicinity of one of the GHF's four distribution centres, which are operated by US private security contractors and are located inside Israeli military zones.

Another 514 people had been killed along the routes of UN and other aid convoys, it added.

It said the office had "no information that these Palestinians were directly participating in hostilities or posed any threat to Israeli security forces".

"Each person killed or injured had been desperately struggling for survival, not only for themselves, but also for their families and dependents," it said, adding that an increasing number of Palestinians were "dying from malnutrition and starvation".

Israel has accused Hamas of instigating the chaos near the aid sites. It says its troops have only fired warning shots and that they do not intentionally shoot civilians.

The GHF has said the UN is using "false" figures from Gaza's health ministry.

The organisation has said it has handed out more than 98 million meals over the past two months and that it stands ready to work with the UN to deliver aid.

However, the UN has refused to co-operate with the GHF's system, saying it is unsafe and violates the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 60,249 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 111 over the past day, according to the territory's health ministry.