On Tuesday, Israeli military forces unleashed another wave of mass violence against the population of Gaza, killing more than 80 Palestinians, including dozens seeking desperately needed food at aid distribution sites.

The carnage, described by survivors and medical workers as a “massacre,” marks the latest escalation in Israel’s campaign to weaponize starvation and terrorize civilians under the cover of humanitarian aid.

According to detailed reports from Al Jazeera and the Associated Press, Israeli troops and drones opened fire on hundreds of Palestinians gathered at multiple aid distribution points across central and southern Gaza.

The Al-Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp confirmed that at least 25 people were killed and 146 wounded—62 of them critically—after Israeli tanks and drones targeted a crowd waiting along Salah al-Din Road, south of Wadi Gaza.

The hospital’s emergency room, as described by Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, “turned into a scene of devastation, with many succumbing while awaiting medical attention”. Eyewitnesses painted a harrowing picture of the attack. Ahmed Halawa told the Associated Press:

It was a massacre. Tanks and drones fired at people, even as we were trying to escape. Many were either killed or injured.

Hossam Abu Shahada described how drones first surveilled the area before tanks and drones opened fire as people moved east toward the aid trucks:

It was chaotic and bloody, filled with individuals trying to flee. I saw at least three people lying motionless on the ground and many others injured as I made my escape.

Similar scenes unfolded at other GHF-run aid sites. In Rafah, witnesses reported Israeli troops opening fire as crowds tried to reach another food distribution point, killing at least 19 and wounding 50 more, according to Nasser hospital and Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Ayman Abu Joda recounted:

There was heavy gunfire from Israeli tanks. Many people were shot. I helped evacuate three wounded people, one hit in the chest and two in the legs.

Across Gaza, the violence left hundreds wounded, with hospitals overwhelmed by the influx of casualties. Social media footage verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency showed bodies being transported to al-Awda Hospital, while medical staff struggled to save those critically injured.

The weaponry deployed by the Israeli military in the attacks demonstrates the deliberate and systematic nature of the barbaric violence and can only be compared to the war crimes of the Nazis during World War II.

Witnesses and medical officials reported that both tanks and drones were used to fire live ammunition and shells into crowds of unarmed civilians at close range. The use of such heavy weaponry against people seeking food is a violation of international law, a calculated act of terror and a crime against humanity.

In response to international outrage, Israeli representatives and military officials have repeatedly justified the killings by claiming that their troops fired “warning shots” at people they deemed “suspects” who approached their forces in a “suspicious manner.”

After each massacre, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) claims to be “reviewing the incident” and insists that its actions are for crowd control and to prevent security threats. However, as the Associated Press and Al Jazeera report, witnesses and humanitarian organizations have consistently stated that the shootings are unprovoked and indiscriminate, with no evidence to support claims of militants among the crowds.

Israel’s fascist political leaders echo these lies, asserting that the killings are necessary for “security” and to “prevent infiltration by militants”—a lying narrative that is exposed by the eyewitness testimony and the scale of the civilian casualties.

Since late May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—a US- and Israeli-backed entity run by private contractors—has taken over the distribution of essential supplies in Gaza. Far from providing relief, the GHF has become a mechanism for militarizing aid and turning starvation into a weapon of war.

The United Nations and humanitarian agencies have refused to collaborate with the GHF, condemning it for prioritizing Israeli military goals over humanitarian needs and for creating “death traps” where civilians are systematically targeted and mowed down.

The limited number of GHF distribution points, all operating under Israeli military direction, are where repeated massacres have occurred. According to hospital sources and international monitors, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed and 1,000 injured at GHF-run aid sites since it began operations on May 26, 2025.

As a World Health Organization trauma surgeon observed:

There’s a constant correlation with the positions of the four announced food distribution sites and the mass casualty incidents.

The purpose of GHF is not humanitarian aid but setting up massacres designed to bring about the collapse of Palestinian society. As described in parliamentary testimony and by multiple aid organizations, GHF is part of Israel’s broader strategy of ethnic cleansing and the herding of starving Palestinians into tightly controlled zones under the pretense of aid, only to force them toward the Egyptian border for eventual expulsion.

The scale of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza is historically unprecedented. While the Nazis sought to conceal the Holocaust from the world, the US-backed Israeli regime has been openly carrying out over the last 20 months the genocide of Palestinians.

On Tuesday, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that the official Palestinian death toll has now surpassed 56,000 since October 7, 2023. Another nearly half a million people are at risk of starvation, with 60,000 children malnourished, and the health system in ruins from repeated bombings of hospitals and targeting of medical personnel.

The blockade of food, water, medicine and fuel is being used as a weapon to break down Palestinian society and erase its political identity. As one international observer summarized:

What we witness in Gaza is not a war; it is a brutal, calculated and systemic attempt to erase an entire people physically, socially and politically. Over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, and thousands more carry wounds that are not only physical but psychological and emotional. It is a humanitarian disaster.

The Gaza genocide is linked to a broader war in the Middle East targeting Iran, forming a central front in the US-Israeli campaign to reassert imperialist domination over the entire region.

As the World Socialist Web Site has repeatedly emphasized, the mass killing and starvation of Palestinians is not an isolated atrocity, but the opening phase of the reorganization of the Middle East to serve the interests of US imperialism—with Israel as its henchman—in preparation for a new world war.

The propaganda justifying war against Iran—centered on false claims of an imminent nuclear threat and that Israel has “the right to defend itself”—are part of the same campaign of lies justifying the extermination in Gaza.

Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, have openly declared their intent to overthrow the Iranian government, with Katz stating that Iran’s supreme leader “cannot continue to exist.”

These statements have been backed by the entire US political establishment, including US President Donald Trump who has called for regime change in Tehran. This goal has been fully embraced by the Democratic Party and the US corporate media with statements made that the Iranian Revolution of 1979—which removed the hated Shah of Iran—must be overthrown by force.