Israeli soldiers open fire near Gaza aid site. Health Officials say 27 are killed

Israeli soldiers opened fire Tuesday morning near crowds of Palestinians walking toward a new food distribution site in the southern Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said. The Red Cross and Gaza Health Ministry said at least 27 people had been killed.

It was the second such shooting in three days near the same site in the city of Rafah, where thousands of desperate and hungry Palestinians have been coming early each day in hopes of securing food. Israeli soldiers opened fire on Sunday near an approach to the distribution center. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said at least 23 people were killed.

The deadly incident on Tuesday was the latest chaos to tarnish the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a contentious new Israeli-backed aid system in Gaza that has been beset by problems since it began operations last week. The foundation confirmed in a statement that “a number of civilians were injured and killed” after they deviated from an Israeli-designated “safe corridor” that led to one of its distribution sites.

Much is riding on the new initiative: Aid agencies say Gaza faces the threat of widespread starvation in the wake of the 80-day Israeli blockade on food deliveries that ended in mid-May.

The Israeli military said its forces had fired near “a few” people who had strayed from the designated route to the site and who did not respond to warning shots. The statement called them “suspects” and said they had “posed a threat” to soldiers. A military spokesperson declined to explain the nature of the perceived threat.

The United Nations has boycotted the new system, saying that it endangers civilians by forcing them to walk for miles to get food on a route that goes past Israeli military lines. The U.N. has also argued that the positioning of the distribution points, mostly in Israeli-occupied areas of southern Gaza, could facilitate an Israeli plan to displace the population of northern Gaza.

A U.N. memo circulated before the initiative was launched last week warned of “overcrowded distribution sites” and said that Israeli forces or U.S. contractors might “use force to control crowds.” The memo also cautioned about the potential for “organized and opportunistic looting” near the hubs.

Many of those problems have been in evidence since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations. The organization has only announced four aid distribution points, compared with 400 under the previous U.N.-coordinated system across Gaza, and most of the new sites have not been operational on most days.

Huge crowds of hungry Palestinians have been arriving early each morning at the aid sites hoping to get a package of food. They have often walked for miles in the predawn darkness. Palestinian witnesses have described a violent scramble for whatever boxes of food are available, rather than orderly handouts.

Ahmed Abid, 28, said he walked for miles from the coastal area of Muwasi in the dark. As he approached a roundabout leading to the distribution center Tuesday morning, he said the sound of shooting burst out, and he fled into a ditch.

After the gunfire subsided, Abid resumed walking to the aid site, where he was shocked by the huge crowd. “Everyone rushed – whoever arrived first got something, and whoever was late went home empty-handed,” he said. “People were tearing at each other.”

Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, the Israeli military’s chief spokesperson, suggested that the casualty figures provided by aid groups and Palestinian health workers in Gaza were inflated. He declined to say how many the military believed had been killed or wounded on Tuesday.

“There was warning fire. It did not harm that number of people, as far as we understand,” he said.

The United Nations condemned the killings. “Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law and a war crime,” Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.

Aid groups said the bloodshed in recent days underscored the risks of the new system.

“Today’s events have shown once again that this new system of aid delivery is dehumanizing, dangerous and severely ineffective,” Claire Manera, an emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement on Sunday.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has faced mounting international criticism, including from the country’s traditional allies. Last month, Britain, France and Canada said in a joint statement that Israeli threats to mount a massive new offensive against Hamas, as well as its two-month blockade on humanitarian aid to Gaza, were “wholly disproportionate.”

Israel says the new aid system is needed to prevent Hamas from stealing and stockpiling food, as well as from financing its war effort by selling food to civilians at elevated prices. U.N. officials have argued there is no evidence that international aid was diverted by Hamas.

But the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is an untested private group, which pays American contractors to distribute food from sites in Israeli-patrolled areas of southern Gaza. The group has dismissed its critics, arguing that it has successfully delivered more than 100,000 boxes of food to hungry Gaza residents.

The organization has been rocked by turmoil since its inception. Its executive director, Jake Wood, resigned hours before it was set to begin operations. He said that the group would not be able to operate independently and impartially, adding that it would be impossible to implement its plan and adhere to his humanitarian principles.

Boston Consulting Group, the U.S. advisory firm, also said it had stepped back from its involvement with the aid organization. The firm said in a statement that it had placed a partner who had worked on the project on leave as it conducts an internal review of its work.

On Tuesday, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it had appointed the Rev. Johnnie Moore, an evangelical pastor, as executive chair.

Aid distribution sites will be closed Wednesday to assess logistical issues and how to cope with crowding while the Israeli military at the same time assesses access on roads leading to the sites, and they will reopen Thursday, according to a statement Tuesday from the group’s spokesperson.

Many of the casualties have arrived at the International Committee of the Red Cross’ field hospital in Rafah. On Tuesday, the clinic received the bodies of 19 people as well as eight others who subsequently died from their wounds, the aid group said in a statement. “The majority of cases suffered gunshot wounds. Again, all responsive patients said they were trying to reach an assistance distribution site,” the Red Cross said.

Jamal Azzam, a nurse at the hospital, said in a phone interview that he had treated many young people alongside his colleagues admitted for gunfire wounds.

“The scenes were tragic,” he said. “It was like a battlefield full of blood and injured – everyone was lying on the ground, everyone screaming and everyone shouting.”

Dr. Ahmad al-Farra, a senior administrator at Nasser Hospital, a medical center in Khan Younis a few miles from the site of the shootings, said in a phone interview that many of the victims were children age 10 to 13 with gunshot wounds.

Some Israelis said that Hamas was trying to undermine the new system by instigating chaos and encouraging people to riot.

“Hamas is under pressure due to the food distribution operation managed by an American company, and is trying in every way to sabotage it,” Naftali Bennett, Israel’s former prime minister, wrote on social media. “Hamas wants to control the food, and through it, to control the people. Israel is denying Hamas this control.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.