 "Palestinians wait to receive aid, in Gaza City, May 25, 2025. File Image/Reuters")
Palestinians in Gaza have said that Israeli forces and a few local gunmen opened fire at them as they were headed to the aid distribution centre run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
The incident comes after many Gazans lost their lives as a result of drone strikes around aid centres over the past few weeks. On Monday, witnesses said that they were fired upon by Palestinian gunmen for the first time near the GHF site in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, meanwhile, has said that six people were killed and 99 were injured in the attack at the aid centre.
On the other hand, GHF said that its distribution centre in Tal al-Sultan was closed on Monday and dismissed claims of an attack at the site.
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Since the GHF began distributing aid on 26 May, deadly incidents have occurred almost daily near at least one of the four centres it has established. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed while attempting to reach a site in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan area, located along a route that passes through an Israeli military zone.
Palestinians have time and again blamed Israeli troops for opening fire at them, a claim that has been repeatedly denied by Israel. However, the military has said that it fired at “suspects” who ignored warning shots and approached them.
Mohammed Sakout, an aid collector at the GHF site, told BBC, “Several young men were shot and killed right behind me. I narrowly escaped death - some bullets passed just inches from my head.”
“At first, it was the Israeli army that was shooting at civilians. But today, we were shocked to discover the presence of gangs and militias,” he added.
Meanwhile, 12 activists, including Greta Thunberg , aboard a yacht which was on its way to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid, arrived at an airport for deportation on Tuesday, after the boat was seized in the Israeli port of Ashdod.
“The passengers of the ‘Selfie Yacht’ arrived at Ben Gurion Airport to depart from Israel and return to their home countries,” the Israeli foreign ministry said on social media.
With inputs from agencies