Dozens of Palestinians were killed or injured by Israeli fire on their way to collect food aid from distribution hubs in southern Gaza under a controversial new US-backed humanitarian scheme, the besieged enclave’s health ministry said.
The health ministry said 31 people had been killed with many injured taken to hospitals on Sunday morning after the Israeli military opened fire at crowds heading towards two food distribution stations run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), one of which was closed.
The Israel Defense Forces denied this, saying an initial inquiry found it “did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false”.
GHF said reports of deaths and injuries at its distribution site on Sunday were “untrue and fabricated” and that aid had been distributed “without incident”.
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“Our aid was again distributed today without incident,” GHF said, warning of “rumours being actively fomented by Hamas”.
The reports could not be independently verified.
Israel – which in March imposed a crushing blockade on Gaza that has pushed the 2.1 million population to the edge of famine – has in recent days allowed limited quantities of aid into the strip via the UN and the GHF-led system.
Under the new GHF model, Gazans must travel – in many cases for long distances on foot – to receive boxed meals from distribution hubs secured by US private security contractors and the Israeli military. The hubs are so far located primarily in the south.
Since it began operations over the past week, the little-known organisation has set up three distribution hubs in south and central Gaza – although only one, in Tal al-Sultan, has been active over the past three days.
The UN and most other humanitarian groups have refused to co-operate, accusing the GHF of having “weaponised” aid to force the displacement of Palestinians to southern Gaza and violating humanitarian principles.
[ Gaza aid foundation chief quits as Israeli air strikes kill dozensOpens in new window ]
A UN spokesperson this week described Gaza as “the hungriest place on earth”.
In its first day of operations on Tuesday, the Tal al-Sultan hub was overrun by thousands of desperate people, with dozens injured by gunfire and taken to a Red Cross field hospital near the centre.
GHF and Israeli military officials denied at the time that any aid recipients were injured.
The killings on Sunday will deepen doubts about GHF’s ability to replace the UN, which previously delivered aid to families at local distribution sites. Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières on Saturday described the new system as “disastrous. Ineffective. Dangerous. Reckless. Dehumanising”.
Sunday’s casualties were taken to the Red Cross-operated field hospital in southern Gaza near the Tal al-Sultan distribution centre, and to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.
Victoria Rose, a British plastic surgeon volunteering at Nasser, said in a video that the hospital had received an “extortionate amount of people” wounded by gunshots. “It’s absolute carnage here,” she said.
Israel said the new system was necessary to ensure that Hamas, whose October 7th, 2023, attack on southern Israel triggered the war, was not able to divert aid. According to the GHF, more than 4.7 million meals have been distributed so far to an estimated 67,000 families.
Humanitarian officials say they had not seen evidence of systematic diversion of aid under the old UN-led model.
Sunday’s violence came as efforts to secure a new ceasefire in Gaza, mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar, faltered.
US envoy Steve Witkoff said on Saturday that amendments proposed by Hamas to a potential deal – under which fighting would stop for 60 days, over two dozen Israeli hostages would be released, and aid would flow into the territory – were “totally unacceptable”.
The Palestinian militant group wants any deal to include a guarantee that Israel will fully withdraw its troops from the enclave and permanently end the war, demands that prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government has rejected.
Witkoff urged Hamas to accept his framework proposal, which he said would allow the start of “good-faith negotiations” over a full end to the conflict.
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