Twenty-seven Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire while waiting for aid to be distributed, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
They were reportedly killed in the Rafah area of southern Gaza early on Tuesday.
The Hamas-run ministry claimed that more than 90 people were injured in what it called a “massacre”, with some of the wounded in a serious condition.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had fired shots about half a kilometre from the aid distribution site of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), adding that people were moving towards its forces in a way that “posed a threat to them”.
The media office of the Gaza government, which is run by Hamas, said in a statement that Israel was transforming aid distribution centres “into mass death traps and bloodbaths” with 102 people killed and 490 more injured in just eight days since the centres opened on 27 May.
The aid centres were “luring starving civilians to them as a result of the crippling famine”, said the media office, which called for humanitarian aid delivered through UN agencies and neutral international organisations rather than the GHF.
The IDF said in a statement: “Earlier today (Tuesday), during the movement of the crowd along the designated routes toward the aid distribution site – approximately half a kilometre from the site – IDF troops identified several suspects moving toward them, deviating from the designated access routes.
The GHF said in a statement on Tuesday: “While the aid distribution was conducted safely and without incident at our site today, we understand that IDF is investigating whether a number of civilians were injured after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone. This was an area well beyond our secure distribution site and operations area.
The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) launched its first aid distribution sites at the end of May to combat widespread hunger among the population in Gaza.
The GHF, a private group endorsed by Israel, operates as part of a controversial new aid system established by Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in May that Israel would be “taking control of food distribution” in Gaza after it accused Hamas of diverting and seizing aid supplies. Hamas has denied stealing aid.
GHF’s aid plan has been criticised by UN agencies and established charities, which have refused to work with the new distribution system.
The UN and major aid groups said the aid plan violates humanitarian principles because it allows Israel to control who receives aid and forces people to relocate to distribution sites, risking yet more mass displacement in the territory.
The IDF said in a statement that the GHF “operate(s) independently in order to enable the distribution of aid to the Gazan residents – and not to Hamas”.
It also highlighted that Israeli troops were “not preventing the arrival of Gazan civilians to the humanitarian aid distribution sites”.
Israel has said it ultimately wants the UN to work through the GHF, which is using private US security and logistics groups to bring aid into Gaza for distribution by civilian teams at so-called secure distribution sites.
There have been repeated reports of Palestinians being killed near Rafah as they gathered at the aid distribution site to get desperately needed supplies.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said its field hospital in Rafah received 184 casualties. A spokesperson added that 19 of those were declared dead upon arrival, and eight died of their wounds shortly after.
There were three children and two women among the dead, according to Mohammed Saqr, who is the head of nursing at Nasser Hospital in Gaza.
A spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights, Jeremy Laurence, said: “For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’.”
Mr Laurence’s office said the impediment of access to food and relief for civilians in Gaza may constitute a war crime, describing attacks on civilians trying to access food aid as “unconscionable”.
The alleged shooting comes just two days after reports that 31 people were killed as they walked to a distribution centre run by the GHF in the Rafah area.
Witnesses said the deaths came after Israeli forces opened fire, while Palestinian and Hamas-linked media attributed the deaths they reported to an Israeli airstrike.
