At least 51 Palestinians have been killed and more than 200 wounded while waiting for UN and commercial trucks to enter the territory with desperately needed food, according to Gaza’s health ministry and a local hospital.
Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on a nearby home before opening fire toward the crowd in the southern city of Khan Younis on Tuesday morning. The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The killings did not appear to be related to a new Israel- and US-supported aid delivery network that was introduced last month and has been marred by controversy and violence.
Yousef Nofal, a witness, said he saw many people motionless and bleeding on the ground after Israeli forces opened fire. “It was a massacre,” he said, adding that the soldiers continued firing on people as they fled the area.
Mohammed Abu Qeshfa said he heard a loud explosion followed by heavy gunfire and tank shelling. “I survived by a miracle,” he said.
The dead and wounded were taken to the city’s Nasser hospital, which confirmed the toll.
Samaher Meqdad was at the hospital looking for her two brothers and a nephew who had been in the crowd. “We don’t want flour. We don’t want food. We don’t want anything,” she said. “Why did they fire at the young people? Why? Aren’t we human beings?”
Palestinians say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds trying to reach food distribution points run by the US and Israel-backed private contractor the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) since the centres opened last month. Local health officials say scores have been killed and hundreds wounded.
In those instances, the Israeli military has acknowledged firing warning shots at people who it said had approached its forces in a suspicious manner.
Israel says the new aid system operated by the GHF is designed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off aid to fund its militant activities.
UN agencies and major aid groups deny there is any major diversion of aid and have rejected the new system, saying it cannot meet the mounting needs in Gaza and violates humanitarian principles by allowing Israel to control who has access to aid.
Experts have warned of famine in the territory, which is home to about 2 million Palestinians.
The UN-run network has delivered aid across Gaza throughout the 20-month Israel-Hamas war, but has faced major obstacles since Israel loosened the total blockade it had imposed from early March until mid-May. UN officials say Israeli military restrictions, a breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting make it difficult to deliver the aid that Israel has allowed in.
Israel’s military campaign since October 2023 has killed more than 55,300 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Its count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israel launched its campaign aiming to destroy Hamas after the group’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostage. The militants still hold 53 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
