JERUSALEM, July 28 (AFP/BBC): Israeli pressure groups B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights warned in a joint statement on Monday of what they called the development of a "genocidal regime in Israel, working to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza."
"Nothing prepares you for the realisation that you are part of a society committing genocide. This is a deeply painful moment for us," said B'Tselem executive eirector Yuli Novak.
Trump says signs of 'real
starvation' in Gaza
US President Donald Trump said Monday there were signs of "real starvation" in Gaza, ravaged by the conflict between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants.
"I mean, some of those kids-that's real starvation stuff," Trump told reporters following a meeting in Scotland with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Israeli fire kills
16 people
Gaza's civil defence agency said 16 people were killed by Israeli fire Monday in the Palestinian territory devastated by more than 21 months of war.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP the dead included five people killed in an overnight strike on a residential building in the southern Gaza district of Al-Mawasi.
A pregnant woman was among those killed, the Palestinian Red Crescent said, adding its teams saved the woman's foetus by performing a Caesarean section in a field hospital.
Israel designated Al-Mawasi, a coastal area west of the southern city of Khan Yunis, as a humanitarian zone in the early months of the war.
Despite that designation, it has continued to be hit by air strikes and now shelters a large share of Gaza's displaced people.
All of Gaza's 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once since the start of the war, and the United Nations says 88 percent of the territory is now either under evacuation orders or within Israeli military zones.
Food arrives in Gaza as Israel
pauses some fighting
Truckloads of food reached hungry Gazans on Monday after Israel promised to open secure aid routes, but humanitarian agencies warned vast amounts more were needed to stave off starvation.
With Gaza's population of more than two million facing famine and malnutrition, Israel bowed to international pressure at the weekend and announced a daily "tactical pause" in fighting in some areas.
"For the first time, I received about five kilos of flour, which I shared with my neighbour," said 37-year-old Jamil Safadi, who shelters with his wife, six children and a sick father in a tent near the Al-Quds hospital in Tel al-Hawa.
Safadi, who has been up before dawn for two weeks searching for food, said Monday was his first success. Other Gazans were less fortunate; some complained aid trucks had been stolen or that guards had fired at them near US-backed aid centres.
"I saw injured and dead people. People have no choice but to try daily to get flour. What entered from Egypt was very limited," said 33-year-old Amir al-Rash, still without food and living in a tent.
Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza on March 2 after talks to extend a six-week ceasefire broke down. Nothing was allowed into the territory until late May, when a trickle of aid resumed.
Now, the Israeli defence ministry's civil affairs agency says the UN and aid agencies had been able to pick up 120 truckloads of aid on Sunday and distribute it inside Gaza, with more on the way Monday.
Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have begun air-dropping aid packages by parachute over Gaza, while Egypt has sent trucks through its Rafah border crossing to an Israeli post just inside Gaza.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, cautiously welcomed Israel's "humanitarian pauses" but warned Gaza needed at least 500 to 600 trucks of basic food, medicine and hygiene supplies daily.
