Soldiers shoot hungry mobs, topping a fatal first week of activity for the embattled Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Israel has killed at least 32 Palestinians queuing to receive food in two aid centres in Gaza, injuring more than 200 others.
Israeli tanks fired on thousands of civilians who had congregated at a distribution point in Rafah in southern Gaza on Sunday morning, and they killed at least 31, said the Government Media Office in Gaza. Shortly afterwards, one more was killed when a shooting broke out at a comparable distribution point south of the Netzarim Corridor in Gaza City, it stated in a Telegram release.
The assistance is being provided by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial Israeli and US-funded organization that has had a frenzied first week of operations in the enclave.
The United Nations and other humanitarian agencies have declined to cooperate with the GHF, calling it unneutral and positing that the organization has been established to allow Israel to pursue its declared military goal of capturing all of Gaza.
“Aid distribution is now a death trap,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in a statement issued on Sunday. The Israeli military stated in a release that its troops did not shoot at civilians around or inside the site, according to an initial investigation.
“In the past few hours, there have been disseminated false reports, including serious accusations against the [Israeli military] of firing on Gazan residents in the vicinity of the site of distribution of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip,” the army stated.
Findings of a preliminary inquiry are” that Israeli troops did not shoot at civilians when they were “near or inside the humanitarian aid distribution point”, it continued, and that “reports to this effect are false”.
The GHF had previously informed The Associated Press news agency that Israeli troops fired “warning shots” while Palestinians had come to collect food. The group refuted reports of dozens of people being killed as “false reporting about deaths, mass injuries and chaos.”.
