Israeli fire killed at least 50 people on Monday, nearly half of them near an aid distribution site run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the territory's Health Ministry said, as U.N. officials denounced Israeli-backed aid delivery methods.
Medics said at least 23 of those people were killed and 200 others wounded near an aid distribution site in Rafah, the latest in daily mass shootings that have killed hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach food since Israel imposed a new distribution system after partly lifting a near three-month total blockade.
As on previous days, witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire in an attempt to control crowds.
The ministry says several hundred people have been killed and hundreds more wounded in such shootings since the centers, run by the private contractor Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, opened three weeks ago.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military. In previous instances, the military has said that troops fired warning shots at what it calls suspects approaching their positions.
Gaza's Health Ministry said 33 Palestinians were killed trying to reach the GHF center near the southern city of Rafah and another on route to a GHF hub in central Gaza. It said four other people were killed elsewhere.
Witnesses describe crowds under fire
Israeli troops started firing as thousands of Palestinians massed around 4 A.M. at the Flag Roundabout before the scheduled opening time of the Rafah food center, according to Heba Jouda and Mohamed Abed, two Palestinians who were in the crowd.
People fell to the ground, trying to take cover, they said. "Fire was coming from everywhere," said Jouda, who has repeatedly made the journey to get food for her family over the past week. "It's getting worse day by day," she said.
The Red Cross field hospital nearby received some 200 wounded Monday, the highest single mass casualty event, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement.
Only a day earlier, it said, around 170 were brought to the facility, most of them wounded by gunshots while trying to reach the GHF center. The Health Ministry toll made it the deadliest day around the food sites since June 2, when 31 people were killed.
The Flag Roundabout, hundreds of meters from the GHF center, has been a repeated scene of shootings. It is on the route designated by the Israeli military for people to take to reach the center.
Palestinians over the past weeks have said Israeli troops open fire to prevent people from moving past a certain point on the road before the scheduled opening of the center or because people leave the road.
A GHF spokesperson told The Associated Press on Sunday that "none of the incidents to date have occurred at our sites or during operating hours." It said the incidents have involved aid-seekers who were moving "during prohibited times […] or trying to take a short cut."
It said it was trying to improve safety measures, including by recently moving the opening times from nighttime to daylight hours.
A new aid distribution system
Israel and the United States say the new GHF system is needed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off aid. GHF says there has been no violence in or around the sites themselves.
Palestine
A community for everything related to Palestine and the occupation currently underway by the occupying force known as Israel.
Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. Existence is resistance for Palestinians.
Please refer to Israel as Occupied Palestine, or occupied territories. The IDF is a fascist and ethnonationalist occupying force. Israelis are settlers. We understand however that the imperial narrative (which tries to legitimise Israel) is internalised in the imperial core and slip-ups are naturally expected.
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