Palestinians hold onto an aid truck returning to Gaza City from the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food in the Gaza Strip, mostly near aid sites run by an American contractor, the U.N. human rights office said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes killed 25 people across Gaza, according to local health officials.

Desperation is mounting in the Palestinian territory of more than 2 million, which experts say is at risk of famine because of Israel’s blockade and nearly two-year offensive. A breakdown of law and order has led to widespread looting and contributed to chaos and violence around aid deliveries.

Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid — without providing evidence of widespread diversion — and blames U.N. agencies for failing to deliver food it has allowed in. The military says it has only fired warning shots near aid sites. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed American contractor, rejected what it said were “false and exaggerated statistics” from the United Nations.

The Gaza Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, said Tuesday that 101 people, including 80 children, have died in recent days from starvation.

The deaths could not be independently verified, but U.N. officials and major international aid groups say the conditions for starvation exist in Gaza. During hunger crises, people can die from malnutrition or from common illnesses or injuries that the body is not strong enough to fight.

Israel eased a 2½-month blockade in May, allowing a trickle of aid in through the longstanding U.N.-run system and the newly created GHF. Aid groups say it’s not nearly enough.

‘I do it for my children’

Dozens of Palestinians lined up Tuesday outside a charity kitchen in Gaza City, hoping for a bowl of watery tomato soup. The lucky ones got small chunks of eggplant. As supplies ran out, people holding pots pushed and shoved to get to the front.

Nadia Mdoukh, a pregnant woman who was displaced from her home and lives in a tent with her husband and three children, said she worries about being shoved or trampled on, and about heat stroke as daytime temperatures hover above 90 F.

“I do it for my children,” she said. “This is famine — there is no bread or flour.”

The U.N. World Food Program says Gaza’s hunger crisis has reached “new and astonishing levels of desperation.” Ross Smith, the agency’s director for emergencies, told reporters Monday that nearly 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and a third of Gaza’s population is going without food for multiple days in a row.