RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces fired on people as they headed toward an aid distribution site in Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least 27, Palestinian health officials and witnesses said, in the third such shooting in three days. The army said it fired “near a few individual suspects†who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots.
The near-daily shootings have occurred after established aid distribution points inside Israeli military zones, a system it says is designed to circumvent Hamas. The United Nations has rejected the new system, saying it doesn't address and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon.
The Israeli military said it “fired to drive away suspects." In a statement, army spokesperson Effie Defrin said "the numbers of casualties published by Hamas were exaggerated†but that the incident was being investigated. He said the army is not preventing Palestinians in Gaza from reaching aid in the distribution areas, but rather allowing it.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, says there has been no violence in or around them. On Tuesday, it acknowledged that the Israeli military was investigating whether civilians were wounded “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone,†in an area that was “well beyond our secure distribution site.â€
A spokesperson for the group said it was “saddened to learn that a number of civilians were injured and killed after moving beyond the designated safe corridor."
Gaza's roughly 2 million people are almost completely reliant on international aid because Israel’s offensive has destroyed nearly all of Gaza’s food production capabilities. Israel imposed a blockade on supplies into Gaza in March, and again late last month after pressure from allies and .
‘Either way we will die’
Witnesses have said the shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout, around a kilometer (half-mile) from one of the GHF’s distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah. The entire area is an Israeli military zone where journalists have no access outside of army-approved embeds.
Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old displaced person from Rafah, said the shooting started around 4 a.m. Tuesday and he saw several people killed or wounded.
Neima al-Aaraj, a woman from Khan Younis, said the Israeli fire was “indiscriminate." She added that when she managed to reach the distribution site, there was no aid left.
“After the martyrs and wounded, I won’t return,†she said. “Either way we will die.â€
Rasha al-Nahal, another witness, said that “there was gunfire from all directions.†She said she counted more than a dozen dead and several wounded along the road.
When she reached the distribution site, she found there was no aid left, she said. She gathered pasta from the ground and salvaged rice from a bag that had been dropped and trampled upon.
“We’d rather die than deal with this," she said. "Death is more dignified than what’s happening to us.â€
UN human rights official condemns shootings
At least 27 people were killed early Tuesday, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, confirmed the toll, saying its field hospital in Rafah received 184 wounded people, 19 of them declared dead on arrival, with eight others later dying of their wounds.
The dead were transferred to Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis. Three children and two women were among the dead, according to Mohammed Saqr, head of nursing at the hospital.
Hospital director Atef al-Hout said most of the patients had gunshot wounds.
An Associated Press reporter who arrived at the Red Cross field hospital at around 6 a.m. saw wounded people being transferred to other hospitals by ambulance. Outside, people were returning from the aid hub, mostly empty-handed, while empty flour bags stained with blood lay on the ground.
Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for the U.N. human rights office, told reporters it also had information indicating that 27 people were killed.
“Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meager food that is being made available through Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism,†Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it distributed 21 truckloads of food at the Rafah site on Tuesday, while its other two operational sites were closed.
During a ceasefire earlier this year, around 600 aid trucks entered Gaza daily.
3 Israeli soldiers killed in northern Gaza
The Israeli military, meanwhile, said three of its soldiers were killed in northern Gaza, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on Israel's forces since it ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March.
The military said the soldiers, all in their early 20s, died during combat on Monday, without providing details. Israeli media reported they were killed in an explosion in the Jabaliya area.
after Hamas refused to change the agreement to release more hostages sooner. Israeli strikes have killed thousands of Palestinians since then, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Israel says the new aid distribution system is designed to prevent Hamas from stealing aid. The U.N. says its own ability to deliver aid across Gaza has been hindered by Israeli restrictions, the breakdown of law and order and widespread looting, but that there's no evidence of systematic diversion of aid by Hamas.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel that ignited the war. They are still holding 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel's military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. The ministry is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government. Its toll by U.N. agencies and independent experts, though Israel has challenged its numbers.
Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. Around 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Oct. 7 attack, including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.
Rockets fired from Syria
Sirens sounded across Israel late Tuesday night.
Israel's army said that two rockets were fired from Syria into open areas in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, marking the first time a strike's been launched toward Israel from Syrian territory since . A group calling itself the Mohammed Deif Brigades claimed the attack in a post on Telegram. Little is known about the group, which first surfaced on social media last month.
Israel has been suspicious of the Islamist former insurgents who formed the new Syrian government and and seized a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory since Assad’s fall.
Syrian state TV reported Israeli shelling hit the western countryside of Syria’s Daraa province after the rocket launch.
Israel's defense minister said it holds Syria's president responsible for every threat and firing towards Israel, and that a “full response†will come as soon as possible.
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Magdy and Khaled reported from Cairo. Julia Frankel and Areej Hazboun in Jerusalem, Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Abby Sewell in Damascus, Syria contributed to this report.
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