Twenty-seven people were killed in southern Gaza on Tuesday after Israeli troops opened fire on crowds of desperate civilians near an Israel-backed aid centre for the second time in three days.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decried the deaths of Palestinians seeking food aid as “unacceptable”, and the world body’s rights chief condemned attacks on civilians as “a war crime” following a similar shooting near the same site on Sunday.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said that “27 people were killed and more than 90 injured in the massacre targeting civilians who were waiting for American aid in the Al-Alam area of Rafah”, in the territory’s south.
Civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal earlier told AFP the deaths occurred “when Israeli forces opened fire with tanks and drones”, while Israel said troops fired towards “suspects” who had ignored warning shots.
The International Committee of the Red Cross gave the same death toll but without mentioning the Israeli forces.
The organisation said Gazans face an “unprecedented scale and frequency of recent mass casualty incidents”.
The latest shooting occurred about a kilometre (just over half a mile) from a centre run by the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is attempting to take control of aid distribution in Gaza from the UN and relief agencies.
The United Nations and major humanitarian groups have refused to work with the system, which they has been designed to militarise aid delivery and facilitate the mass displacement of Palestinians.
At a hospital in southern Gaza, the family of Reem al-Akhras, who was killed in the shooting at Rafah’s Al-Alam roundabout, were beside themselves with grief.
“She went to bring us some food, and this is what happened to her,” her son Zain Zidan said, his face streaked with tears.
Akhras’s husband, Mohamed Zidan, said “every day unarmed people” were being killed.
“This is not humanitarian aid; it’s a trap.”
The Israeli military maintains that its forces do not prevent Gazans from collecting aid.
Army spokesperson Effie Defrin said the Israeli soldiers had fired towards suspects who “were approaching in a way that endangered” the troops, adding that the “incident is being investigated”.
‘Unconscionable’
Rania al-Astal, 30, said she had gone to Al-Alam with her husband to try to get food.
“Every time people approached Al-Alam roundabout, they were fired upon,” she told AFP.
“But people didn’t care and rushed forward all at once – that’s when the army began firing heavily.”
Fellow witness Mohammed al-Shaer, 44, said at first “the Israeli army fired shots into the air, then began shooting directly at the people”.
GHF said the operations at its site went ahead safely on Tuesday, but acknowledged the army’s investigation.
A military statement said troops saw some people “deviating from the designated access routes” to the Al-Alam aid point, and fired warning shots.
When “the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects”, it added.
The previous shooting on Sunday killed at least 31 people and injured hundreds of other at the Al-Alam roundabout, rescuers said. A military source acknowledged “warning shots were fired towards several suspects”.
Guterres urged an independent investigation into that shooting, with his spokesman on Tuesday saying it was “unacceptable civilians are risking and in several instances losing their lives just trying to get food”.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk called such attacks “unconscionable”.
“Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law and a war crime,” he said.
The White House said it was “looking into the veracity” of the reports from Rafah.
Soldiers killed
Israel has come under mounting pressure to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where people are facing severe shortages after Israel imposed a more than two-month blockade.
The blockade was recently eased, but the aid community has urged Israel to allow in more food, faster.
GHF’s first week of operations, in which it said it had distributed more than seven million meals’ worth of food, has been marred by criticism.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said GHF was “succeeding in getting the meals distributed”, adding that Washington would also look at “how we can further improve”.
Israel has stepped up its offensive in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war.
The health ministry in Gaza said at least 4,240 people have been killed since Israel resumed its offensive on 18 March, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,510, mostly civilians.
Apart from the aid centre incident, the civil defence agency reported 19 killed on Tuesday.
Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The army said three of its soldiers had been killed in northern Gaza, bringing the number of Israeli troops killed in the territory since the start of the war to 424.
(AFP and TNA staff)
