The Government Media Office in Gaza has issued a statement confirming Israel’s killing of at least 22 people and wounding of 115 others at a US-backed aid site in Rafah, Al Jazeera reports.

It also said the latest killings have taken the toll at such sites to at least 39 in less than a week. More than 220 people have also been wounded.

The Government Media Office said the killings “reflect the nature of these areas as mass death traps, not humanitarian relief points”.

It added: “We confirm to the entire world that what is happening is a systematic and malicious use of aid as a tool of war, employed to blackmail starving civilians and forcibly gather them in exposed killing points, managed and monitored by the occupation army and funded and politically covered by the occupation and the US administration, which bears full moral and legal responsibility for these crimes.”