KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — At least 51 Palestinians were killed and more than 200 wounded in the Gaza Strip while waiting for U.N. 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 Associated Press 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 Israeli military said soldiers had spotted a gathering near an aid truck that was stuck in Khan Younis, near where Israeli forces were operating. It acknowledged “several casualties” as Israelis opened fire on the approaching crowd and said authorities would investigate what happened.

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

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs, or OCHA, said the people killed were waiting for food rations arriving in U.N. convoys.

Also on Tuesday, the main Palestinian telecoms regulatory agency based in the West Bank city of Ramallah reported that Israeli strikes had cut off fixed-line phone service and internet access in central and southern Gaza.

‘Aren’t we human beings?’

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.

Mohammed Abu Qeshfa reported hearing 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 51 people had been killed. Later Tuesday, medical charity MSF raised the death toll to 59, saying that another 200 had been wounded while trying to receive flour rations in Khan Younis.

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?”

Palestinians say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds trying to reach food distribution points run by a separate U.S. and Israeli-backed aid group since the centers opened last month. Local health officials say scores have been killed and hundreds wounded.

In those instances, the Israeli military has acknowledged firing warning shots at people it said had approached its forces in a suspicious manner.

Deadly Israeli airstrikes continued elsewhere in the enclave on Tuesday. Al-Awda Hospital, a major medical center in northern Gaza, reported that it has received the bodies of eight Palestinians killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the central Bureij refugee camp.

Desperation grows as rival aid systems can’t meet needs

Israel says the new system operated by a private contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is designed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off aid to fund its militant activities.

U.N. agencies and major aid groups deny there is any major diversion of aid and have rejected the new system, saying it can’t meet the mounting needs in Gaza and that it violates humanitarian principles by allowing Israel to control who has access to aid.

Experts have warned of famine in the territory that is home to some 2 million Palestinians.

The U.N.-run network has delivered aid across Gaza throughout the 20-month Israel-Hamas war, but has faced major obstacles since Israel loosened a total blockade it had imposed from early March until mid-May.

U.N. officials say Israeli military restrictions, a breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting make it difficult to deliver the aid that Israel has allowed in.

Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for OCHA, said on Tuesday that the aid Israeli authorities have allowed into Gaza since late May has been “woefully insufficient.”

Fuel has not entered Gaza for over 100 days, she said. “The only way to address it is by sufficient volumes and over sustained periods of time. A trickle of aid here, a trickle of aid there is not going to make a difference.”

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.

Israel launched its campaign aiming to destroy Hamas after the group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 251 hostage.

The militants still hold 53 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo and Krauss from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

51 Palestinians killed while waiting for aid: officials

‘MASSACRE’: Palestinians accuse Israeli forces of repeatedly opening fire on crowds trying to reach food distribution points run by a US and Israel-backed aid group

AP, KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip

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, Gaza’s health ministry and a local hospital said.

Palestinian witnesses told The Associated Press 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.

Palestinians who were injured in Israeli fire as they gathered near a food aid center receive care at Khan Younis’ Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday, Gaza health officials said. Photo: AFP

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.

Yousef Nofal, an eyewitness, said that 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.

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?”

Palestinians say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds trying to reach food distribution points run by a separate US and Israeli-backed aid group since the centers opened last month. Local health officials say scores have been killed and hundreds wounded.

In those instances, the Israeli military has acknowledged firing warning shots at people it said had approached its forces in a suspicious manner.

Israel says the new system operated by a private contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is designed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off aid to fund its militant activities.

UN agencies and major aid groups deny there is any major diversion of aid and have rejected the new system, saying it cannot meet the mounting needs in Gaza and that it violates humanitarian principles by allowing Israel to control who has access to aid.

Experts have warned of famine in the territory that is home to about 2 million Palestinians.

The UN-run network has delivered aid across Gaza throughout the 20-month Israel-Hamas war, but has faced major obstacles since Israel loosened a total blockade it had imposed from early March until the middle of last month.

UN officials say Israeli military restrictions, a breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting make it difficult to deliver the aid that Israel has allowed in.

Israel’s military campaign since October 2023 has killed more than 55,300 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, Gaza’s health ministry said. The figure does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

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

CAIRO — At least 51 people were killed and more than 200 injured by Israeli fire while they waited for aid near Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Tuesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement. The Israel Defense Forces said that it was aware of reports of “a number of injured individuals from IDF fire following the crowd’s approach” and that the incident was under review.

Twenty of the cases involved serious injuries, and the dead and injured were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex, the Health Ministry said. In a statement, the IDF said that a “gathering was identified” next to an aid distribution truck that got stuck in the area “in proximity to IDF troops.”

“The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible to them while maintaining the safety of our troops,” it said.

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Zaher al-Wahidi, head of the Health Ministry’s statistics team, described “many cases” requiring amputations. He and Munir al-Bursh, the ministry’s director, both said the injuries at the al-Tahlia roundabout appeared to be from shelling. Their accounts aligned with the testimony of a survivor of the attack, who was reached by phone on Tuesday.

Mohamed Abu Ghali, 32, said he went to the roundabout to seek flour to feed his two young daughters, thinking that waiting for aid from trucks passing by would be safer than traveling to one of the distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a nonprofit backed by the United States and Israel that uses armed contractors for security.

Israeli troops have repeatedly shot and killed civilians approaching those hubs since they opened last month, according to health officials and eyewitnesses to the attacks. The IDF has denied playing a role in some of those shootings and said it is investigating others. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 397 people have been killed seeking aid from the sites, which are located in both southern and central Gaza.

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“We thought it would be easier,” Abu Ghali said. But as he waited with thousands of others for aid trucks to arrive in the area, three Israeli artillery shells struck the crowd, sending shrapnel flying and leaving dozens of dead and wounded lying in the street.

Abu Ghali’s younger brother, Ahmed, 27, who was nearby at the time of the incident, said shrapnel hit his brother’s right leg, above the knee, leading to “lacerations in the skin and bones.”

“His leg was only attached with a thin layer of skin,” Ahmed recalled. Surgeons had to amputate Abu Ghali’s leg from the pelvis down.

He only survived because bystanders ferried him to the hospital, first on a cart and then a motorized rickshaw. “I was lucky,” Abu Ghali said from his hospital bed.

Asked about the “mass casualty event” at a news briefing, World Health Organization officials said the agency received reports of people being killed and injured while waiting for food supplies Tuesday but did not provide further details, citing a “breakdown of communication.” Gaza has suffered intermittent communications blackouts in recent weeks.

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The GHF, which began distributing food aid last month in the southern and central Gaza Strip, said in a statement that there were no incidents at its four sites Tuesday, and accused the Gaza Health Ministry of spreading “false information.”

“All food aid unloaded today was delivered smoothly at three sites,” GHF interim executive director John Acree said in the statement. He said there was “some early overcrowding” at one of the sites that prevented trucks from arriving and unloading.

“People are starving and their desperation can create hazardous conditions. The uncomfortable truth is this: until there is enough food aid inside Gaza, we will not always complete ‘orderly’ deliveries,” he added.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Tuesday evening local time that attacks on aid seekers “are also increasingly occurring along routes used by the U.N. to deliver humanitarian supplies.”

Israel began allowing some aid into Gaza last month after a nearly three-month blockade on all food, fuel and humanitarian relief, an effort it said was aimed at pressuring Hamas. Since then, Israel has permitted some aid groups to bring supplies into Gaza independently from the GHF. But the daily quantity remains far below what is needed to provide enough food and essential supplies to the more than 2 million Palestinians living there, nearly all of whom have been displaced more than once, U.N. officials say.

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Fuel stocks in Gaza are “critically low,” OCHA said Tuesday. “Without immediate resupply, essential services — including the provision of clean water — will grind to a halt very soon,” and “80 percent of critical care units essential for births and medical emergencies will shut down.”

An Israeli military official denied there is a shortage of fuel in Gaza in a call with reporters Tuesday, adding that “accessibility” of fuel stocks was a problem but that the IDF worked with the United Nations to fix it. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the military.

COGAT, the branch of the Israeli military charged with coordinating the entry of aid to Gaza, said 64 trucks carrying aid crossed into northern and southern Gaza on Monday.

“The IDF will continue to permit the entry of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip while taking every effort to ensure that the humanitarian aid does not reach the Hamas terrorist organization,” COGAT said in a statement.

Witnesses have described scenes like “a horror movie” in Gaza after Israeli forces fired towards a crowd waiting for trucks loaded with flour near Khan Younis, on one of the bloodiest days for weeks in the devastated territory.

At least 51 Palestinians were reported to have been killed and hundreds more wounded in the southern city. People at the scene and doctors described seeing injured and dead with wounds typical of those caused by artillery or tank fire. Unverified video shared on social media showed about a dozen mangled bodies lying in a street.

Multiple other incidents of violence involving crowds of desperate Palestinians trying to get food were reported on Tuesday. Eight Palestinians were reported to have died in a separate shooting near an aid distribution site in the city of Rafah, and several more injured or killed in a third incident between Rafah and Khan Younis.

The Israeli military acknowledged firing in the area of the crowd in Khan Younis and said it was looking into the incident.

Musab Barbakh, 22, said he had arrived at the al-Tahlia junction at midnight. “I was sitting with a group of young men at around 8.30am when suddenly a shell landed right in the middle of us. I don’t know how I survived without any injuries. As I was running away, another shell hit another group of people. Then a missile was fired, followed by random gunfire,” he said.

“The ground was filled with martyrs, the wounded, and pools of blood. Cars were exploding, the bodies of the martyrs were torn apart – wherever you looked, you saw scenes of body parts, blood, and corpses. I felt like I was living in a horror movie.”

Abdullah Anshasi, 30, from the al-Amal neighbourhood in Khan Younis, said he, too, was waiting for the aid to arrive when “explosions began and shrapnel rained down around us”.

“Many people were killed. We saw several artillery shells land around us,” he said. “What we witnessed was horrifying: human bodies flying through the air, hundreds of injured people lying on the ground. We survived by a miracle.”

Dr Mohammed Saqer, the head of the nursing department at the Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis, said 51 dead and 250 injured people – including 20 in a critical condition – were brought into the hospital.

“The injured were transported to us … on donkey carts, with multiple injured people stacked on top of each other. In some, as many as 20 wounded all piled up,” Saqer said.

“Most of the injuries are in the upper body – limbs, chest, heart, and head. Many victims arrived as dismembered body parts, with amputations and other severe injuries. Based on our inquiries with eyewitnesses and those accompanying the injured, the attack appears to have been carried out using artillery shells, followed by live gunfire from soldiers.”

A second doctor at the Nasser medical complex said the hospital morgue was completely full, so bodies were being placed outside the building. “Thousands of people – relatives and injured – have flooded the hospital, searching for their loved ones. Wounded people are lying in the hospital courtyards. The emergency department has been completely paralysed,” they said.

The IDF said it was aware of reports of casualties “from IDF fire”.

“The details of the incident are under review. The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimise harm as much as possible to them while maintaining the safety of our troops,” its statement said.

The IDF said a crowd had been identified adjacent to an aid distribution truck that had got stuck in the area of Khan Younis, and in proximity to IDF troops operating in the area.

The exact identity of the trucks expected at the al-Tahlia junction was not immediately clear. UN agencies, commercial operators and others have all moved limited amounts of aid into Gaza in recent weeks.

Anas Barbakh, 21, said he had travelled to al-Tahlia after hearing that trucks loaded with flour had reached the crossroads for the past two days.

“So many people were killed and wounded that we couldn’t even tell who was dead, who was injured, or who was still alive. My brother and my cousin Musab were injured – one in the head and the other in the chest. We transported them to the hospital on horse-drawn carts,” he told the Guardian.

A tight blockade on all supplies entering Gaza was imposed by Israel throughout March and April, threatening many of the 2.3 million people who live there with a “critical risk of famine”. Food has become extremely scarce, sending prices for basics soaring.

“Despite the danger, we are forced to go [to get aid]. No one can afford to buy a bag of flour for $400 … I have a family of 10 people to feed,” said Barbakh.

Since the blockade was partially lifted last month, the UN has tried to bring in aid but has faced major obstacles, including rubble-choked roads, Israeli military restrictions, continuing air strikes and growing anarchy.

Aid officials said between 20 and 30 UN trucks had entered Gaza through the main checkpoint of Kerem Shalom in recent days but all had been looted. “There is no law and order. Some of it is criminal and organised but mostly it is just desperate people trying to get some food,” a senior UN official told the Guardian.

Palestinians say Israeli forces have opened fire repeatedly on crowds trying to reach food distribution points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private organisation that recently began operating in Gaza with Israeli and US support.

The second incident reported on Monday involved Palestinians seeking to access an aid hub in Rafah. The details of the third incident were unclear, though witnesses described many injured. There was no immediate comment from the IDF or GHF.

On Monday, at least 37 Palestinians were killed as they tried to reach a GHF site, local authorities said. The IDF disputed the death toll, saying it did not match their information. Witnesses blamed that shooting on Israeli troops who opened fire early in the morning as crowds of hungry Palestinians converged on two hubs managed by the GHF.

Israel hopes the GHF will replace the previous comprehensive system of aid distribution run by the UN, which Israeli officials claim allowed Hamas to steal and sell aid. UN agencies and major aid groups, which have delivered humanitarian aid across Gaza since the start of war, have rejected the new system, saying it is impractical, inadequate and unethical. They deny there is widespread theft of aid by Hamas.

The GHF’s provisions so far have been grossly inadequate, humanitarian officials in the devastated territory said.

Israel’s military campaign since October 2023 has killed more than 55,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Its count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Israel launched its campaign aiming to destroy Hamas after the group’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostage. The militants 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 contributed to reporting

At least 51 Palestinians have been killed and 200 wounded while waiting for desperately needed aid, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and a local hospital.

Palestinian witnesses told Associated Press that Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on a nearby home, before opening fire toward the crowd in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Reports say that Israeli tanks fired at the crowd of Palestinians, who were waiting for flour to be distributed.

The incident did not appear to be related to the new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a Israeli backed and US supported aid delivery network that rolled out last month and has been marred by controversy and violence.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said soldiers had spotted a gathering near an aid truck that was stuck in Khan Younis, near where Israeli forces were operating.

“The IDF is aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals from IDF fire following the crowd’s approach,” a spokesperson said.

“The details of the incident are under review. “The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible to them while maintaining the safety of our troops.”

Israel states they are reviewing the incident. Credit: AP

Social media footage shared online appears to show dozens of bodies lying in the street.

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.

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.

Nasser Hospital said it was overwhelmed by the influx of injured people and mortalities.

Footage seen by ITV News shows the chaos inside the hospital, with injured people lying across the floor waiting to be treated as staff work frantically around them.

Nasser Hospital hosted a press conference online, with foreign doctors volunteering at the hospital speaking.

Dr. Mark Brauner is an emergency medicine specialist from Oregon in the United States.

He spoke in the press conference, saying: “Today it’s reported that tanks have been used at the food distribution centres, which makes sense because we’re seeing multi trauma, we’re seeing head, neck, chest, abdomen, extremities, many, many deaths and it just doesn’t have to be this way.

“This is something that’s just got to stop.”

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Palestinians say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds trying to reach food distribution points run by the GHF, since the centers opened last month.

Local health officials say scores have been killed and hundreds wounded.

In those instances, the Israeli military acknowledged firing warning shots, claiming people had approached its forces in a suspicious manner.

Experts have warned of famine in Gaza, which is home to around 2 million people.

Some health workers in Gaza are now recommending people to not visit aid distribution sites as they have become too dangerous, despite food being so precarious and the threat of famine so severe.

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