Israeli gunfire kills 17 people near Gaza aid site, health officials say

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli gunfire killed at least 17 Palestinians and wounded dozens as thousands of displaced people approached an aid distribution site run by a U.S.-backed humanitarian group in central Gaza on Tuesday, local health authorities said.

Medics said the casualties were rushed to two hospitals, the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, and the Al-Quds in Gaza City, in the north.

The Israeli military said its forces had fired warning shots at "suspects who were advancing in the area of Wadi Gaza and posed a threat to the troops".

It added that it was aware of reports that several were injured, but said numbers released by local health authorities did not align with the information it had collected.

"The warning shots were fired hundreds of meters from the aid distribution site, prior to its opening hours and toward the suspects who posed a threat to the troops," the military added.

It has previously accused Hamas militants of deliberately disrupting aid distribution.

"This incident happened several hours before we began operations outside of our distribution site," the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said in a statement, referring further questions to the Israeli military.

The GHF earlier said that aid was handed out on Tuesday from three sites in southern and central Gaza without incident.

Last week the army warned Palestinians not to approach routes leading to sites of the GHF between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. local time, describing these roads as closed military zones.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral.

"Day after day, casualties & scores of injured are reported at distribution points manned by Israel & private security companies," Philippe Lazzarini, the chief of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), wrote on X.

"This humiliating system continues to force thousands of hungry & desperate people to walk for tens of miles excluding the most vulnerable & those living too far," he said.

ROCKET INTERCEPTION

While the GHF has said there have been no incidents at its distribution sites, Palestinians seeking aid have described disorder, and access routes to the sites have been beset by chaos and deadly violence.

"I went there at 2 a.m. hoping to get some food, on my way there, I saw people returning empty-handed, they said aid packages had run out in five minutes. This is insane and isn't enough," said Mohammad Abu Amr, 40, a father of two.

"Dozens of thousands arrive from the central areas and from the northern areas too, some of them walked for over 20 km (12 miles), only to come back home with disappointment," he told Reuters via a chat app. He said he heard the firing but did not see what happened.

Lazzarini said food aid should be overseen by the United Nations. "Aid deliveries & distribution must be at scale & safe. In Gaza, this can be done only through the United Nations ... We have the expertise, the knowledge & community trust," he said.

Israel has repeatedly called for UNRWA to be disbanded, accusing it of having ties with Hamas. UNRWA has denied this.

Separately, local health authorities said an Israeli strike on a house in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza Strip killed eight people, taking Tuesday's death toll to at least 25.

The Israeli military said it had intercepted one rocket fired from northern Gaza towards Israeli territories, which signalled Hamas and other militant group remained able to fire the weapons despite Israeli devastation of their arsenal.

Israel allowed limited U.N.-led operations to resume on May 19 after an 11-week blockade in the enclave of 2.3 million people, where experts have warned a famine looms. The U.N. has described the aid allowed into Gaza as "drop in the ocean."

Witnesses said at least 40 trucks carrying flour for U.N. warehouses were looted by desperate displaced Palestinians as well as thieves near Nabulsi roundabout along the coastal road in Gaza City.

The war erupted after Hamas-led militants took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in an October 7, 2023, attack, Israel's single deadliest day.

Israel's military campaign has since killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the coastal enclave.

(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Additional reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, William Maclean and Nia Williams)