A new open-source investigation by The New Humanitarian, a Geneva-based organization, has revealed that Israeli forces have killed nearly 3,000 Palestinians and wounded about 20,000 others while they were attempting to access humanitarian assistance since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza.
The investigation documented almost 200 separate Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians seeking aid between January 2024 and the end of July 2025. It also detailed other incidents of gunfire directed at crowds near aid distribution points, particularly after the launch of the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”, a U.S.- and Israeli-backed initiative that began operations in late May 2025.
According to the report, these assaults are not isolated episodes but rather an escalation of a deliberate and deadly strategy embedded in Israel’s military policy. This strategy has deepened the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by systematically targeting people searching for food and other basic supplies, effectively depriving them of the essentials needed for survival.
The New Humanitarian estimates that at least 2,957 Palestinians have been killed and 19,866 wounded in such attacks over the past 23 months. This represents about 4.6% of the more than 64,600 Palestinians killed since the start of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, and slightly over 12% of the total injured.
“This pattern of repeated attacks amounts to serious violations of international humanitarian law and rises to the level of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and potentially acts of genocide,” said Adil Haq, a professor of international law at Rutgers University in the United States, who contributed to the report.
Haq added: “If Israeli leaders are simply indifferent to the mass killing of Palestinians seeking aid, then international condemnation and the prospect of accountability for war crimes should be enough to force a change in policy and prevent these crimes in the future.”
The investigation concluded that Israel has used attacks on aid seekers as a strategic weapon, serving purposes such as “lethal crowd control, forced displacement, and the destruction of Palestinians’ collective ability to remain in Gaza.”
Comment