Hospitals in Gaza reported the killing of at least 18 people, eight of them food-seekers, in Israeli firing on Saturday, as Palestinians endured severe risks searching for food amid airdrops and restrictions on overland aid delivery. However, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said “nothing (happened) at or near our sites.”

The episode came a day after a US envoy visited a food distribution site in the Gaza Strip operated by an Israeli-backed American contractor on Friday. International outrage has mounted as the group’s efforts to deliver aid to hunger-stricken Gaza have been marred by violence and controversy. International experts warned this week that Gaza was the “worst-case scenario of famine.”

A Palestinian boy receives the last drops of lentil soup at a food aid site in Gaza