At least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near a food distribution site in southern Gaza on Tuesday, local health authorities said, marking the third consecutive day of similar incidents.
The casualties occurred near a distribution centre in Rafah as Israel implements a new aid distribution system in the blockaded Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian officials.
The Israeli military said its forces opened fire on individuals who had left designated access routes near the distribution centre, describing the action as warning shots fired at “suspects who advanced toward the troops in such a way that posed a threat to them.”
A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross told Reuters its field hospital in Rafah received 184 casualties, with 19 declared dead upon arrival and eight dying shortly after from their wounds.
Separately, at least 10 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza on Tuesday morning, news agency Wafa reported, including two children killed when a house sheltering displaced people was struck in Khan Younis.
Medical sources told Wafa that Nasser hospital received 32 bodies, including 24 people killed when Israeli forces opened fire near the aid distribution point.
The incidents occurred as the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which Israeli authorities are using to bypass traditional aid groups operating in Palestinian territories, distributed 21 truckloads of food on Tuesday morning.
The Israeli military stated that its troops “are not preventing the arrival of Gazan civilians to the humanitarian aid distribution sites” and said warning shots were fired approximately half a kilometre from the distribution site.
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), described the Israeli-enforced aid distribution system as a “death trap” at the weekend.
“This humiliating system has forced thousands of hungry and desperate people to walk for tens of miles to an area that’s all but pulverised due to heavy bombardment,” Lazzarini said.
Israel has maintained a blockade of Gaza for several weeks as part of its military operations in the territory.
Israel launched its Gaza campaign following Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack that killed 1,200 people and resulted in 251 hostages taken into Gaza, according to Israeli figures. The subsequent military operation has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, Gaza health officials report.
Most of Gaza’s 2.1 million population has been displaced, many multiple times. An estimated 70% of buildings have been damaged or destroyed, with healthcare, water and sanitation systems collapsing amid shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.
Experts, governments, United Nations agencies, and non-governmental organisations have accused Israel of carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people.
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