Gaza: Four killed, others injured in shooting near aid distribution point

Four people were killed and others injured by Israeli forces on Sunday as Palestinians making their way towards an aid distribution site in the southern Gaza Strip came under fire, according to Palestinian paramedics.

It was the latest deadly incident near sites run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Palestinians have described areas around the sites as chaotic and dangerous, with dozens of fatal shootings over the past week.

The Israeli military said in a statement that troops had opened fire in southern Gaza but said that it had directed warning shots at a group that was moving towards soldiers and deemed a threat to them.

Palestinian paramedics said they had evacuated the bodies of four people who were killed early on Sunday near an aid distribution venue in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

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Media affiliated with Gaza’s dominant Hamas militant group reported that the Israeli military had opened fire near a distribution site in Rafah operated by the GHF.

The Israeli military statement said the people towards whom warning shots were fired before dawn on Sunday had been verbally warned to leave the area, which was considered an active military zone at the time.

The military has said people should only move to and from the GHF distribution centres between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., with non-daylight hours considered a closed military period.

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The Palestinian Health Ministry said that at least 104 people were killed over the past 24 hours, including five near aid hubs in southern and central Gaza. It did not specify how all 104 had been killed or exactly where.

Sanaa Doghmah said her husband, Khaled, 36, was fatally shot in the head while trying to reach a distribution site in Rafah to collect food for their five children.

“He was going to get food for his children and himself, to make them live, feed them because they don’t have a pinch of flour at home,” Khaled’s aunt, Salwah, said at his funeral.

Hamas-led Palestinian factions said in a statement the new aid distribution sites had “turned into death traps” and called for the aid to be distributed through U.N.-affiliated agencies.

The GHF, which is providing aid under an Israeli initiative that is bypassing traditional relief agencies who say their deliveries into Israeli-blockaded Gaza have been restricted, said it had handed out 1.15 million meals across three sites in southern and central Gaza without incident on Sunday.

Truckloads of food

The U.S.-based organisation said it was also piloting a direct-to-community model, delivering 11 truckloads of food to community leaders for distribution in areas north of Rafah.

“We are continuing to adapt and improve our operations to ensure the safety of the Palestinian people we aim to serve," interim GHF Executive Director John Acree said in a statement.

GHF had handed out no aid on Saturday, accusing Hamas of making threats that “made it impossible” to operate in the enclave, which the Islamist group denied.

The GHF uses private American military contractors to operate its sites and has been accused of a lack of neutrality and independence by U.N. and other international humanitarian agencies. It has denied such accusations.

Israel relented to international pressure to allow limited U.N.-led operations to resume on May 19 after an 11-week blockade in the enclave of 2.3 million people where malnutrition has become widespread. The U.N. has described aid let in so far as a “drop in the ocean.”

While the GHF has said there have been no incidents at its distribution points set up in late May, Palestinians seeking aid have described scenes of disorder and access routes to the sites have been beset by deadly violence.

Dozens of Palestinians were killed near GHF sites on June 1-3, Gaza health authorities said. Israel’s military has said it was investigating the incidents but that warning shots were fired in each incident.

The war erupted after Hamas-led militants took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.

Israel’s military campaign has since killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the heavily built-up coastal territory.