Israeli forces killed at least 74 people in Gaza on Monday with airstrikes that left 30 dead at a seaside cafe and gunfire that left 23 dead as Palestinians tried to get desperately needed food aid, witnesses and health officials said.
One airstrike hit Al-Baqa Cafe in Gaza City when it was crowded with women and children, said Ali Abu Ateila, who was inside.
“Without a warning, all of a sudden, a warplane hit the place, shaking it like an earthquake,” he said.
Dozens were wounded, many critically, alongside at least 30 people killed, said Fares Awad, head of the Health Ministry’s emergency and ambulance service in northern Gaza.
Two other strikes on a Gaza City street killed 15 people, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties. A strike on a building killed six people near the town of Zawaida, according to Al-Aqsa hospital.
The cafe, one of the few businesses to continue operating during the 20-month war, was a gathering spot for residents seeking internet access and a place to charge their phones. Videos circulating on social media showed bloodied and disfigured bodies on the ground and the wounded being carried away in blankets.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed 11 people who had been seeking food in southern Gaza, according to witnesses, hospitals, and Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis said it received the bodies of people shot while returning from an aid site associated with the Israeli and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund. It was part of a deadly pattern that has killed more than 500 Palestinians around the chaotic and controversial aid distribution program over the past month.
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