‘Death trap’: Dozens killed waiting for food in Gaza

Rafah: At least 31 people were killed and more than 170 wounded as large crowds made their way before dawn to receive food in the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

Witnesses said Israeli forces fired towards the crowds about a kilometre from an aid site run by a controversial new aid foundation backed by the United States and Israel. The Israeli military denied the allegation.

Palestinians carry the body of a person killed while heading to a Gaza aid hub, during a funeral at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Sunday.Credit: AP

It was the deadliest incident yet around the new aid distribution system that has operated for less than a week in Gaza, which is on the brink of famine after an 11-week blockade Israel enacted in March to put pressure on militant group Hamas, which controls the territory.

“Aid distribution has become a death trap,” United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees chief Philippe Lazzarini said.

Israel’s military said its forces did not fire at civilians who were near or within the aid distribution site in the southern city of Rafah. An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said troops fired warning shots at several suspects advancing towards them overnight.

The Israeli military also released drone footage it said was shot on Sunday, apparently in daylight, in the southern city of Khan Younis, showing what it said were armed, masked men firing at civilians trying to collect aid. The Associated Press could not independently verify the video, and it was not clear who was being targeted.

“Hamas is doing everything in its power to prevent the successful distribution of food in Gaza,” the statement said.

Under international pressure, Israel allowed some food and medical supplies to start entering Gaza again last month and instigated a new distribution system to be run by a group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Aid groups say nowhere near enough food has been allowed in to feed the population of about 2.3 million people, and the new system violates humanitarian principles.

GHF said it delivered aid “without incident” on Sunday and released a separate video it said was shot at the distribution site, which appeared to show people collecting aid. The AP was not able to verify the video. The foundation has denied previous accounts of chaos and gunfire around its sites, which are in Israeli military zones where independent media has no access.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said that its field hospital in Rafah received 179 casualties including women and children, 21 of them declared dead upon arrival, the majority with gunshot or shrapnel wounds. It was unclear if any of the dead were militants.

“All patients said they had been trying to reach an aid distribution site,” the Red Cross said, calling it the highest number of “weapon-wounded” people in a single incident since the hospital was set up over a year ago.

In a separate statement, Israeli military chief of staff Lieutenant-General Eyal Zamir ordered that more aid sites be established, and that troops’ ground operation be expanded in unspecified parts of northern and southern Gaza.

A new aid system marred by chaos

Witnesses said on Sunday that Israeli forces opened fire after thousands of people heading towards the GHF distribution site in the hours before dawn congregated about one kilometre away to wait for the site to open.

The witnesses said Israeli forces ordered people to disperse and come back later, before opening fire. An Associated Press reporter arrived at the field hospital about 6am and saw dozens of wounded, including women and children. The reporter also saw crowds of people returning from the distribution point. Some carried boxes of aid but most appeared to be empty-handed.

A Palestinian girl waits to collect donated food from a distribution kitchen in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Friday.Credit: AP

GHF said in a statement that it delivered 16 trucks worth of aid “without incident” early on Sunday and rejected “false reporting about deaths, mass injuries and chaos” at its distribution sites, which are in Israeli military zones where independent access is limited.

Multiple witnesses have said Israeli troops have fired on crowds near the delivery sites, which began operating last week under a new system where people have to pass through Israeli checkpoints and undergo screening to reach the aid distribution centres.

Before Sunday, 17 people had been killed while trying to reach them, according to Zaher al-Waheidi, the head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department.

Palestinians carry aid packages from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Khan Younis on Sunday.Credit: AP

United Nations agencies and major aid groups have refused to work with the new system, saying it violates humanitarian principles.

The foundation says the private security contractors guarding its sites have not fired on the crowds, while the Israeli military has acknowledged firing warning shots on previous occasions.

‘The scene was horrible’

One witness said that he saw at least 10 bodies with gunshot wounds and several other wounded people near the aid centre on Sunday morning.

“There was fire from all directions, from naval warships, from tanks and drones,” Amr Abu Teiba, who was in the crowd, said, adding that people used carts to ferry the dead and wounded to the field hospital. “The scene was horrible,” he said.

An Israeli strike in Gaza City on Sunday.Credit: AP

Ibrahim Abu Saoud provided a nearly identical account. He said the military fired from about 300 metres away and that he saw many people with gunshot wounds, including a young man who he said had died at the scene. “We weren’t able to help him,” he said.

Another witness, Mohammed Abu Teaima, 33, said he saw Israeli forces open fire and kill his cousin and another woman as they were heading toward the distribution site. He said his cousin was shot in his chest and died at the scene. Many others were wounded, including his brother-in-law, he said.

“They opened heavy fire directly toward us,” he said as he was waiting outside the Red Cross field hospital for word on his wounded relative.

Most people were shot “in the upper part of their bodies, including the head, neck and chest,” Dr Marwan al-Hams, a health ministry official at Nasser Hospital said. Many were transferred from the Red Cross field hospital to Nasser Hospital. A colleague, surgeon Khaled al-Ser, said 150 wounded people had arrived, along with 28 bodies.

The hospital corridors were filled with patients, “but unlike what I have witnessed before, where most of the patients were women and children, today it was mainly men,” a spokesperson with medical charity MSF, Nour Alsaqa, said.

Hub is part of a controversial new aid system

Israel and the United States say the new aid system in place in Gaza is aimed at preventing Hamas from siphoning off assistance. Israel has not provided any evidence of systematic diversion, and the United Nations denies it has occurred.

UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to work with the new system, saying it 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 UN system has struggled to bring in aid since Israel slightly eased its 11-week blockade of the territory last month. Aid groups say Israeli restrictions, the breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting have made it extremely difficult to deliver aid to Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians.

Dozens of United Nations aid trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries were hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people desperate for food on Saturday.

A US ceasefire proposal that Israel has accepted would allow for the entry of aid into Gaza and a 60-day pause in fighting, alongside the release of 28 hostages held by Hamas.

In response, Hamas said on Saturday it was willing to release 10 living hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 dead in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, but it also reiterated demands for an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza – conditions Israel has rejected.

Protesters in Tel Aviv on Saturday demand the end of the war and immediate release of hostages held by Hamas.Credit: AP

US envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said that response was “totally unacceptable”.

Mediators Qatar and Egypt issued a joint statement on Sunday saying they continued “intensive efforts to bridge the gaps in viewpoints” and hoped for “a swift agreement for a temporary ceasefire lasting 60 days, leading to a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip”.

Israel has previously rejected Hamas’ conditions, instead demanding the complete disarmament of the group and its dismantling as a military and governing force, along with the return of all 58 remaining hostages.

The Israeli military also said on Saturday it had killed Hamas’ Gaza chief, Mohammad Sinwar, during a strike on a hospital in southern Gaza on May 13, confirming what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told parliament earlier this week.

Sinwar, the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s deceased leader and mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. They are still holding 58 hostages, around 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 over 54,000 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. The offensive has destroyed vast areas of the territory, displaced around 90 per cent of its population, and left people almost completely reliant on international aid.

Reuters, AP

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