At least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near a food distribution site in southern Gaza on Tuesday, health officials said, in a third day running of chaos and bloodshed to blight the aid operation.
The Israeli 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 an Israeli and US-backed foundation 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 Gaza’s mounting hunger crisis and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon, reports AP from Rafah, Gaza Strip.
UN human rights chief Volker Türk has condemned new reports has condemned new reports that dozens more Gazans were killed early Tuesday “trying to access paltry amounts of food” around a private aid hub in the south of the enclave run by the US and Israel. “Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law and a war crime,” the High Commissioner said in a statement, issued after Palestinians were reportedly killed seeking assistance for a third day running.
Türk also urged Israel to respect “binding orders” issued by the International Court of Justice to fully cooperate with the UN and ensure that aid reaches the people of Gaza “without delay” and “at scale.”
“There is no justification for failing to comply with these obligations,” he said.
UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Secretary General Antinio Guterres condemned the loss of lives and injuries of Palestinians seeking aid, which are “unacceptable,” and continues to call for an independent investigation into the incidents. “Once again, we are witnessing unthinkable loss of life in Gaza,” he told journalists in New York. “Civilians are risking – and in several instances losing – their lives to get food.”
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.”
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 limited aid began to enter again late last month after pressure from allies and warnings of famine.
‘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.”
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.”
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.