Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 30 people when they opened fire Wednesday on a crowd waiting for humanitarian aid in the north of the Palestinian territory.

The Israeli military said it had no knowledge of casualties in the incident north of Gaza City, as the United Nations said that pauses in Israel's offensive against Hamas were not enough to help the population through a deepening hunger crisis.

The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, said that four days into Israel's "tactical pauses", people were still dying from hunger and malnutrition, alongside casualties among those seeking aid.

Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that "at least 30 martyrs were killed" and 300 wounded when Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting for aid north of Gaza City.

Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said his facility had received 35 bodies from the shooting, which reportedly struck about three kilometres (two miles) southwest of the Zikim crossing point for aid trucks entering Gaza.

The Israeli army said that dozens of Gazans were........

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