At least 37 Palestinians were killed on Monday in shootings near food distribution centres in Gaza, local authorities have said. Witnesses blamed Israeli troops, who opened fire early in the morning as crowds of hungry people converged on two hubs managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private organisation operating with Israeli and US support.
Most of the victims died while trying to reach a centre near the southern city of Rafah, health officials said, with four others killed elsewhere. Two Palestinians at the Rafah site, Heba Jouda and Mohammed Abed, told the Associated Press that Israeli forces fired on the crowds at about 4am at the Flag roundabout, hundreds of metres from the centre. The International Committee of the Red Cross said its field hospital in Gaza had received 200 patients, its highest number in a single mass casualty incident.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to travel long distances, often at night, to reach the new hubs, crossing Israeli-controlled areas in a desperate effort to obtain food packages. The Israeli military has designated specific routes, and GHF has warned that leaving the roads is dangerous, but people often do so to get to the scarce supplies first. Aid officials say the two sides frequently give conflicting advice, leading many to enter zones that are supposedly off-limits.
The Israel Defense Forces said an initial inquiry suggested the reported toll was inaccurate, adding that troops had fired warning shots after suspects approached them in an active combat zone. Israel hopes the GHF will replace the previous aid distribution system run by the United Nations, which Israeli officials claim allowed Hamas to steal and sell aid. Aid agencies deny this, saying their tracing systems are robust, and have rejected the new system as impractical, inadequate and unethical.
Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said Israel’s offensive in Gaza was inflicting “horrifying, unconscionable suffering” on Palestinians. “Everyone in government needs to wake up to what is happening in Gaza. All those with influence must exert maximum pressure on Israel and Hamas, to put an end to this unbearable suffering,” he said.
