MEDICS slammed the US-backed aid scheme for the Gaza Strip today, describing it as “slaughter masquerading” as humanitarian relief.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) called for a halt to the operations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

The foundation, launched last month, “is degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies,” MSF said in a statement, demanding that the scheme be “immediately dismantled.”

GHF is accused of involvement in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians waiting for food aid.

Established aid groups and the United Nations have refused to work with the new organisation, accusing it of violating basic humanitarian principles by co-ordinating delivery with Israeli troops.

Israeli officers and soldiers have told the Haaretz newspaper that they were instructed to shoot at unarmed Palestinians seeking aid at designated distribution zones in Gaza, despite the crowds posing no threat.

The soldiers described to the paper how they fired on crowds of aid seekers to prevent them approaching or to disperse them, rather than using non-lethal crowd control measures.

“It’s a killing field where I was,” one soldier said. “Between one and five people were killed every day.”

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 549 people have been killed near aid centres since they began operating in late May.

Israel has continued to expand its military operations outside Gaza.

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) has raised the alarm about an Israeli military notice that all buildings will be destroyed in 13 Palestinian communities in the Masafer Yatta area of the occupied West Bank.

At least 1,200 people are now at risk of “forced displacement” if the military carries out its planned demolitions, Ocha said.

The UN agency also reported that, between June 13 and 23, Israeli soldiers “took over” 240 Palestinian homes to use them as military outposts and interrogation centres.

In southern Lebanon, Israel’s air force carried out brutal air strikes today on mountains overlooking the city of Nabatieh.

Israel claims that the attack targeted underground assets of the Hezbollah resistance group.

Another strike hit a block of flats in Nabatieh, killing one woman and wounding 11, according to Lebanon’s state news agency.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the Israeli attacks.

“Israel continues to disregard regional and international resolutions and calls to stop violence and escalation in the region, which necessitates effective action from the international community to put an end to these attacks,” he wrote on X.