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Dozens of people were killed or injured in a shooting near a food bank in Gaza on Sunday, as Israel denied firing on civilians collecting aid.
The Red Cross reported a "mass casualty influx" of 179 people at a field hospital in Rafah, of whom 21 were declared dead on arrival. It said most had gunshot or shrapnel wounds, while survivors said they had been trying to reach an aid distribution site.
Witnesses said the shooting unfolded at dawn near one of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's collection points in Rafah. Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli troops had opened fire at civilians, while Gaza's Health Ministry put the toll at 31 dead and 170 injured.
Israel's army offered competing explanations. It first said it was unaware of casualties, then said it did not fire at civilians "near or within" the food bank in the south of Gaza, and that "reports to this effect are false".
An Israeli military official separately said troops had fired warning shots to "prevent several suspects from approaching" the site, but that this was unrelated to the "false claims" against the army. The military also released footage of unknown people "hurling rocks and firing at Gazan civilians" in Khan Younis, as it accused Hamas of thwarting aid delivery.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which runs the centres, said aid had been distributed "without incidents". It said reports of fatalities were false.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of aid agency UNRWA, said aid distribution "has become a death trap". He described the new aid centres as a "humiliating system" forcing hungry Gazans to walk for tens of miles to an area ravaged by Israeli bombardment.
Witness accounts
Ibrahim Abu Taima was among the hungry Gazans who set out early in the morning in search of food, arriving shortly after dawn at the US-backed aid centre in Rafah.
The 34-year-old was "hoping to get food before the rush", he told The National. “But people were already packed in. Everyone is hungry, no food, no water, for months.”
Then, soon after sunrise, gunfire erupted near the food bank. “People were shot at without warning. Chaos broke out," said Ibrahim. His cousin Mahmoud was killed, and a young nephew was shot in the leg.
Over the past week at least 39 Palestinians have been reported dead and more than 220 wounded while trying to collect food from the new aid centres in Gaza, which are staffed by US private security guards. Officials and survivors say Israel is drawing starving civilians into a trap under the guise of humanitarian aid. The bloodiest scenes unfolded on Sunday morning after civilians had gathered in the early hours.
"This is not aid. It’s an ambush,” Ismail Al-Thawabti, director of the Government Media Office in Gaza, told The National.
He alleged that “Israel and the US administration are orchestrating these massacres under the pretence of humanitarian relief, killing civilians in cold blood without any legal or international deterrent."
Mohammed Al-Ghareeb, a journalist from southern Gaza, also witnessed the scene. “Thousands of people were there, mothers, children, elderly. The army started firing directly at people’s heads and chests. It was deliberate," he told The National.
He noted that many people had travelled through the night from Gaza city and northern areas to reach the centre. “They left empty-handed, fleeing bullets instead of receiving aid.”
Adding to the horror, looters reportedly waited near the centres to rob aid recipients. “They snatched parcels from people who made it out alive,” he said. “The situation is catastrophic. Famine is claiming lives, and the world remains silent.”
Israel says the new system of food distribution is a way of bypassing Hamas, which it accuses of pilfering aid. The Red Cross said civilians had, for months, been forced to "navigate areas affected by intense hostilities" to find food.
It said the intake at the Rafah field hospital was the "highest number of weapon-wounded in a single incident" since it opened more than a year ago.
Controversial plan
The UN has criticised the aid distribution plan, which also cuts usual aid providers such as Palestinian relief agency UNRWA out of the loop. Little is known about the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and aid groups say it endangers rather than helps civilians by delivering food through narrow, militarised corridors.
After a two-month ceasefire boosted Gaza's food stocks, Israel blocked all aid from entering the strip from March until mid-May. The entire population is thought to be at risk of famine and Gaza's farmland has been destroyed, with barely any land remaining arable.
Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza, condemned the new aid operations as a facade for military targeting.
“Civilians who came to feed their children returned in coffins,” he said. “These are not humanitarian efforts. They are Israeli-American military zones designed to humiliate and kill.”
Mr Al Shawa urged immediate international intervention. “We are living through the worst humanitarian catastrophe in our history. There is no access to the basic elements of life. This can no longer be ignored.”
As starvation and bombardments continue to devastate the population, calls for a ceasefire grow more desperate by the day. Hamas neither accepted nor rejected the latest US ceasefire proposal on Saturday, saying it was willing to release hostages but demanding that Israel should ultimately withdraw.
Ibrahim Abu Taima said there were screams, blood and "bodies everywhere" in the aftermath of the Rafah gunfire as he carried his cousin and nephew to the nearest hospital.
Mahmoud had been married for four years, a father of two. “He went out to get food for his kids and returned home in a shroud. That’s our reality now,” Ibrahim said.
“There are countless safer ways to distribute food,” Ibrahim Abu Taima said. “But they chose the one that kills us.”
