The death toll on Monday was the highest yet reported in near-daily shootings since the Gaza Humanitarian Food (GHF) centres that began operations three weeks ago.
Health officials in Gaza said most of Monday’s victims were killed whilst trying to reach the GHF centre near the southern city of Rafah, which the Israeli military has largely razed, and close to a second GHF centre in central Gaza. Four other people were killed elsewhere.
Two Palestinians attempting to obtain food at the Rafah site told the Associated Press that Israeli forces fired on crowds at approximately 4am at the Flag roundabout. The traffic circle, hundreds of metres from the GHF centre, has repeatedly been the scene of shootings.
The International Committee of the Red Cross stated that its field hospital in Gaza had received 200 patients on Monday, marking the highest number of patients received by the facility in a single mass casualty incident. On Sunday, the same hospital treated 170 people, many of whom “were wounded by gunshots, and who reported that they were trying to access a food distribution site”.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to travel long distances and cross Israeli military-controlled areas in Gaza, often at night, in desperate and hazardous efforts to obtain food packages from the new centres.
The Israeli military has designated specific routes to access the food hubs, and GHF has warned Palestinians that leaving the roads is dangerous. However, many do so in attempts to reach the scarce food first.
Aid officials said GHF and the Israeli military often give conflicting advice about access to the distribution sites, leading thousands to attempt accessing the hubs through zones that are supposedly still off-limits.
The Israel Defense Forces claimed that an initial inquiry suggested the toll reported by local authorities was not accurate. It said in a statement: “Despite warnings that the area is an active combat zone, overnight several attempts were made by suspects to approach IDF troops who were operating in the area of Rafah, posing a danger to them. IDF troops operated in order to remove the threat and prevent the suspects from approaching them, and fired warning shots”.
Israel hopes the GHF will replace the previous comprehensive system of aid distribution run by the United Nations, which Israeli officials claim allowed Hamas to steal and sell aid. Aid agencies deny this, saying their tracing systems are robust.
UN agencies and major aid groups have rejected the new system, saying it is impractical, inadequate and unethical. They deny there is widespread theft of aid by Hamas.
Palestinian health officials say scores of people have been killed and hundreds wounded since the sites opened last month. On Sunday, GHF said it had distributed 36,000 food boxes, totalling more than 2.1 million meals.
In Geneva, Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said Israel’s near 20-month offensive in Gaza was inflicting “horrifying, unconscionable suffering” on Palestinians and urged government leaders to “wake up” and exert pressure to bring an end to the conflict.
“The facts speak for themselves,” said Türk at the opening of the latest human rights council session on Monday. “Everyone in government needs to wake up to what is happening in Gaza. All those with influence must exert maximum pressure on Israel and Hamas, to put an end to this unbearable suffering”.
The Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva responded by accusing Türk and his office of being “relentless in making irresponsible and uneducated statements regarding Israel’s conduct of hostilities – including reliance on information propagated by terrorist organisations”.
Experts, governments, United Nations agencies, and non-governmental organisations have accused Israel of carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people.
(information from The Guardian/image source: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)
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