51 Palestinians killed while waiting for aid trucks in Gaza

 At least 51 Palestinians were killed and more than 200 wounded in the Gaza Strip while waiting for UN and commercial trucks to enter the territory with desperately needed food, according to Gaza's Health Ministry and a local hospital.

Palestinian witnesses told the media that Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on a nearby home before opening fire toward the crowd in the southern city of Khan Younis. The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It did not appear to be related to a new Israeli- and US-supported aid delivery network that rolled out last month and has been marred by controversy and violence.

Israel's military campaign since October 2023 has killed over 55,300 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Yousef Nofal, an eyewitness, said he saw many people motionless and bleeding on the ground after Israeli forces opened fire. "It was a massacre," he said, adding that the soldiers continued firing on people as they fled from the area.

Mourners carry the body of a Palestinian killed in what the Gaza Health Ministry said were Israeli strikes, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. Reuters

Mohammed Abu Qeshfa said he heard a loud explosion followed by heavy gunfire and tank shelling. "I survived by a miracle," he said.

The dead and wounded were taken to the city's Nasser Hospital, which confirmed the toll.

Samaher Meqdad was at the hospital looking for her two brothers and a nephew who had been in the crowd.

"We don't want flour. We don't want food. We don't want anything," she said. "Why did they fire at the young people? Why? Aren't we human beings?"

People react as Palestinian casualties, who were waiting to receive aid, are brought into Nasser hospital following an Israeli strike, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. Reuters

Palestinians say they face the choice of starving or risking death as they make their way past Israeli forces to reach the distribution points, which are run by a private contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza says several hundred people have been killed and hundreds more wounded in such shootings since the centers opened.

The ministry said 33 Palestinians were killed on Monday trying to reach the GHF centre near the southern city of Rafah and another was killed while headed to a GHF hub in central Gaza. It said four other people who weren’t trying to get to distribution centres were killed elsewhere.

Palestinians are desperate to feed their families after most food ran out during the 2½ months this year when Israel barred all supplies from entering the territory. Israel has eased the blockade since last month to let in a trickle of aid.

Palestinians gather to receive aid supplies in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Monday. Reuters

Israeli troops started firing as thousands of Palestinians massed around 4am at the Flag Roundabout before the scheduled opening time of the Rafah food center, according to Heba Jouda and Mohamed Abed, two Palestinians who were in the crowd.

People fell to the ground, trying to take cover, they said. "Fire was coming from everywhere,” said Jouda, who has repeatedly made the journey to get food for her family over the past week. "It’s getting worse day by day," she said.

The Red Cross field hospital nearby received some 200 injured on Monday, the highest single mass casualty event it has seen, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement. Only a day earlier, it said, around 170 were brought to the facility, most of them wounded by gunshots while trying to reach the GHF center. The Health Ministry toll made it the deadliest day around the food sites since June 2, when 31 people were killed.

A Palestinian man carries aid supplies, in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Monday. Reuters

The Flag Roundabout, hundreds of meters (yards) from the GHF centre, has been the scene of repeated shootings. It is on the route designated by the Israeli military for people to take to reach the centre.

Palestinians over the past weeks have said Israeli troops open fire to prevent people from moving past a certain point on the road before the scheduled opening of the centre or because people leave the road.

A GHF spokesperson told media on Sunday that "none of the incidents to date have occurred at our sites or during operating hours.” It said the incidents have involved aid-seekers who were moving "during prohibited times ... or trying to take a short cut.” It said it was trying to improve safety measures, including by recently moving the opening times from nighttime to daylight hours.

Israel and the United States say the GHF system is intended to replace the UN-led humanitarian operation that has delivered aid across Gaza since the start of the 20-month Israel-Hamas war. Israel contends that the new mechanism is needed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off aid.

Palestinians wave as they ride in the back of a truck west of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, on Monday. AFP

UN agencies and major aid groups deny that there is widespread theft of aid by Hamas and have rejected the new system. They say it can’t meet the population's needs and turns food into a weapon for Israel to carry out its military goals, including moving the more than 2 million Palestinians into a "sterile” enclave in the southern Gaza.

Speaking at Britain's House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday, an official with Doctors Without Borders said Israel's claims of extensive diversion by Hamas were "specious and cynical,” and were intended "to undermine a humanitarian system which was actually functioning.”

"This is neither a humanitarian enterprise nor a system. This is basically lethal chaos,” Anna Halford, a field coordinator for the group, said when asked by lawmakers about the GHF centres.

A Palestinian man walks across the rubble of a building destroyed by an Israeli strike in Deir Al Balah, central Gaza Strip, on Monday. AP

Experts warn that Israel’s ongoing military campaign and restrictions on aid entry have put Gaza at risk of famine.

Israel launched its campaign aiming to destroy Hamas after the group's Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which the Palestinian group Hamas fighters killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 251 hostage. The fighters still hold 53 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Associated Press