A Palestinian baby has died of starvation in Gaza as Israel maintains its blockade on aid supplies and fires on people forced to seek food at controversial United States-backed aid sites described as “death traps”.

The 35-day-old infant died of malnutrition at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, director Muhammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera. The unnamed infant was one of two people who succumbed to starvation in the facility on Saturday.

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The deaths occurred as Gaza’s Ministry of Health warned that hospital emergency wards were overwhelmed by unprecedented numbers of starving people, with officials saying that 17,000 children in Gaza are suffering from severe malnutrition.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military continued to pound the Strip, with medical sources reporting that at least 116 people were killed across the enclave since dawn, including 38 who were shot dead while seeking food from aid sites run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the deaths happened near a site southwest of Khan Yunis and another centre northwest of Rafah, both in southern Gaza, attributing the fatalities to “Israeli gunfire”.

The Health Ministry says almost 900 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and private military contractors near dangerous GHF sites since the foundation began distributing aid in late May, opening four points that replaced about 400 centres run by United Nations agencies and charities.

Witness Mohammed al-Khalidi told Al Jazeera the shots fired at aid seekers on Saturday were “meant to kill”.

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“Suddenly, we saw the jeeps coming from one side and the tanks from the other, and they started shooting at us,” he said.

Another witness, Mohammed al-Barbary, whose cousin died in the shootings, said the GHF sites are “death traps”.

“Anyone can get killed. My cousin was innocent. He went to get food. He wanted to live. We want to live like everyone else,” said al-Barbary.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said families hoping for something to eat are instead burying their loved ones.

The GHF denied that Saturday’s killings happened at its site, claiming they occurred “several kilometres away” and “hours before our sites opened”.

The Israeli military said it was reviewing the incident.

‘Open the gates’

Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, warned that Palestinians in Gaza face “an acute risk of famine”.

“No one should have to risk their life to get basic humanitarian assistance,” he said.

Basic supplies are not available in markets or distribution points, while the cost of essentials such as flour skyrocketed, making it impossible for the population of 2.3 million to meet their daily nutritional needs.

Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), rejected assertions made earlier in the week by European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who noted “some good signs” regarding aid distribution in Gaza.

“For NRC and many others no relief has entered for 142 days. Not one truck. Not one delivery,” Egeland wrote on X. He noted that 85 percent of aid trucks never reach their destination because of looting or other issues fuelled by the Gaza starvation crisis.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which Israel has banned from operating in the Palestinian territory, including in occupied East Jerusalem, said it had “enough food for the entire population of Gaza” waiting at the border crossing in Egypt.

“Open the gates, lift the siege and allow UNRWA to do its work,” the organisation said on X.

Wave of attacks

At least 116 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Saturday as Israel continued its ruthless onslaught, bombing tents for the displaced and homes across the enclave.

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Four bodies were recovered from the site of Israeli strikes on Bani Suheila near southern Khan Younis, sources at Nasser Hospital told Al Jazeera.

At least one person was killed by an Israeli drone attack on a tent housing displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis.

Further north, Israel struck a residential home in the town of az-Zawayda in central Gaza, killing the director of the Nuseirat police, Colonel Omar Saeed Aql, along with 11 of his family members, according to the Interior Ministry.

In Gaza City, three people were killed in two Israeli air attacks on the Zeitoun neighbourhood, according to a source at al-Ahli Hospital.

Also in the city, five people were killed in an Israeli air attack on the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Medical sources said two people were killed in Israeli shelling in the Jabalia an-Nazla neighbourhood, in northern Gaza.

Israeli forces also opened fire on and arrested three Palestinian fishermen off the Gaza coast, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office.

The Israeli military has maintained a naval blockade on Gaza since 2007, when Hamas took over the enclave, which has been tightened since the start of the war in October 2023.