CAIRO, June 10 – Israeli gunfire killed at least 17 Palestinians and wounded dozens as thousands of displaced people approached an aid distribution site of 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.
Last week the army warned Palestinians not to approach routes leading to sites of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. local time, describing these roads as closed military zones.
There was no immediate GHF comment on Tuesday’s incident.
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.
REUTERS
