Director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza: We call for the urgent closure of death traps.

Director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, Mohammed Abu Salima, called for the closure of aid distribution centers, saying they have become death traps in the Gaza Strip. This came after the first deaths due to suffocation and the intense stampede of Palestinian citizens at aid distribution centers.

Twenty-one Palestinians, 15 of them children and the elderly, were killed by tear gas fired at starving people at an aid distribution center south of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Abu Salmiya said the massive surge was a result of the hunger people in the Gaza Strip are suffering from. He noted that people are flocking by the hundreds of thousands to receive aid, but the Israeli occupation and the organization distributing the aid are treating them in an inhumane and inappropriate manner, with no organization or clear mechanisms for distributing aid.

Abu Salmiya did not confirm reports that the victims were exposed to tear gas, which led to their suffocation. However, he noted that the Israeli occupation and American Foundation employees had previously fired toxic gases and sprayed pepper spray on starving people who had gone to aid distribution centers in search of food to quell their hunger.

He described what happened today as a major crime committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinians, noting that they had previously warned UN and international organizations about the conditions currently facing Gazans. Abu Salmiya emphasized that they are no longer able to provide services and supplies to patients in the Strip, which, he said, is another form of death.

He called for the immediate and urgent closure of what he called death traps, a call echoed by organizations operating in the Gaza Strip, including the United Nations, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and Doctors Without Borders.

The director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex concluded in his remarks that those who hadn't died from Israeli airstrikes and drones were now dying of suffocation as a result of the stampede for food.

The Government Media Office in Gaza confirmed that the occupation and the American Foundation are carrying out a horrific massacre against the starving, noting that the so-called "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation" is not a humanitarian organization and does not adhere to any standards for relief work. Rather, it is a dangerous security and intelligence tool designed to serve the occupation's agenda.

Since the start of operations in the Gaza Strip at the end of last May, American aid distribution centers have witnessed almost daily killings and targeting of starving people, with Israeli forces using artillery shells, reconnaissance missiles, and, in some cases, quadcopter drones to fire explosive bullets.