At least 40 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Gaza, including 10 seeking aid, health authorities said, adding another five had died of Israel-imposed starvation.

The 10 have died in two separate incidents on Monday near aid sites belonging to the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in central and southern Gaza, local medics said.

The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in the enclave since the GHF began operating in May 2025, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.

"Everyone who goes there, comes back either with a bag of flour or carried back (on a wooden stretcher) as a martyr, or injured. No one comes back safe," said 40-year-old Palestinian Bilal Thari.

He was among mourners at Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital on Monday who had gathered to collect the bodies of their loved ones killed a day earlier by Israeli fire as they sought aid, according to Gaza's health officials.

At least 13 Palestinians were killed on Sunday while waiting for the arrival of UN aid trucks at the Zikim crossing on the Israeli border with northern Gaza, the officials added.

At the hospital, some bodies were wrapped in thick patterned blankets because white shrouds, which hold special significance in Islamic burials, were in short supply due to continued Israeli border restrictions and the mounting number of daily deaths, Palestinians said.

"We don’t want war, we want peace, we want this misery to end. We are out on the streets, we all are hungry, we are all in bad shape, women are out there on the streets, we have nothing available for us to live a normal life like all human beings, there’s no life," Thari said.

Deaths from hunger

Meanwhile, five more people died of starvation or malnutrition over the past 24 hours, Gaza's Health Ministry said on Monday. The new deaths raised the toll of those dying from hunger to 180, including 93 children, since the war began.

UN agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease access to it.

Gaza government media office said on Sunday that more than 600 aid trucks had arrived since Israel eased restrictions late in July. However, witnesses and Hamas sources said many of those trucks have been looted by desperate displaced people and armed gangs.

Palestinian and UN officials stated that Gaza requires approximately 600 aid trucks per day to meet its humanitarian needs.

According to Gaza health officials, Israel has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians since it began its military assault on October 7, 2023.