By WAFAA SHURAFA, Associated Press

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli- and U.S.-backed group paused food delivery at its three distribution sites in the Gaza Strip after health officials said dozens of Palestinians were killed in a series of shootings near the sites this week. Israeli strikes across the territory, meanwhile, killed 26 people overnight and into Wednesday, officials said.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it was in discussions with the Israeli military on better guiding foot traffic near the distribution hubs and enhancing military training procedures to promote safety.

The move came a day after Israeli forces acknowledged opening fire as people headed toward a GHF site in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah, a military zone off limits to independent media.

Gaza health officials, the Red Cross and the U.N. rights office said 27 people were killed on Tuesday, and witnesses blamed Israeli forces. Israel’s military said it fired near people it described as suspects who it said approached its forces and ignored warning shots. It says it is looking into reports of casualties.

Health officials say dozens have been killed since new aid sites opened

At least 80 people have been killed in the vicinity of the sites or heading to them since they opened last week, according to hospital officials, including dozens in similar shootings at roughly the same location on Sunday and Monday, when the military also said it had fired warning shots.

GHF says there has been no violence in the aid sites themselves but has acknowledged the potential dangers people face when traveling to them on foot. Thousands of Palestinians walk to the sites early each morning, desperate for food and hoping to beat the crowds, and pass near Israeli forces in the predawn darkness.

GHF said it asked Israel’s military, the Israel Defense Forces, to “introduce measures that guide foot traffic in a way that minimizes confusion or escalation risks near IDF military perimeters; develop clearer IDF-issued guidance to help the population transit safely; enhance IDF force training and refine internal IDF procedures to support safety.”

In a separate development, Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 26 people late Tuesday and into Wednesday, according to hospital officials. One of the strikes hit a tent in Gaza City, killing seven people, including two women and a 7-year-old girl, according to Shifa Hospital.

The military said it was looking into the reports. Israel says it only targets combatants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because the group is entrenched in populated areas. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

A controversial new aid system

Israel and the United States say they supported the establishment of the new aid system to prevent Hamas from stealing aid and selling it to finance its fighting activities. Israel has not claimed that Hamas fired in the area of the GHF sites.

The United Nations, which operates a longstanding aid system that can deliver to hundreds of locations across the territory, denies there has been any systematic diversion of aid by Hamas, saying it has mechanisms to prevent that.

The U.N. has refused to take part in the new system, saying it violates humanitarian principles by allowing Israel to control who gets aid and by forcing Palestinians to travel to just three distribution hubs, two of which are in the southernmost city of Rafah.

“The world is watching, day after day, horrifying scenes of Palestinians being shot, wounded or killed in Gaza while simply trying to eat,” U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said in a statement. He called for a flood of aid to be let in and for the world body to be the one delivering it.

Israel imposed a complete ban on food and other imports for 2 1/2 months before easing the restrictions in May. U.N. agencies say lingering restrictions, the breakdown of law and order inside Gaza, and widespread looting have made it difficult to deliver assistance.

Warnings of famine as the war grinds on

Experts warned earlier this year that Gaza is at risk of famine if Israel does not lift its blockade and stop the military campaign it renewed in March, when it shattered a ceasefire with Hamas. Israel has since ramped up its offensive, in what it says is meant to pressure Hamas to agree to a ceasefire more favorable to Israel’s terms.

The war began when Hamas-led terrorists stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. They are still holding 58 hostages, around a third believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s military campaign has killed over 54,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.

The ministry is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government. Its toll is seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts, though Israel has challenged its numbers. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

The offensive has destroyed vast areas, displaced around 90% of the population, and left people almost completely reliant on international aid.

Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Widely circulated reports on Tuesday, June 3, from several news outlets claimed that Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinians near an aid distribution site in Gaza. That incident followed a series of similar attacks at aid centers over the previous few days. Together, those reports generated international concern and calls from the United Nations to launch a formal investigation.

Now, The Washington Post is issuing corrections after omitting Israel’s initial denial of some of those incidents. Israel now says that it fired upon individuals who it believed were approaching an IDF position in a threatening manner.

Early media headlines included phrases such as “Israeli forces in Gaza kill dozens of Palestinians seeking aid” and “At least 27 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire.” The reports cited the Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas.

Health researchers in the U.K. said in January that the Hamas-run ministry had actually been undercounting deaths in Gaza by about 41%, whereas earlier estimates held that the ministry was undercounting mortalities by only 10%. An unknown number of bodies are believed to be buried under rubble, and that is a primary factor in the disagreement.

Israeli officials refute allegations

Israeli officials initially refuted the accusation that they fired on Palestinian civilians, calling it a “Hamas lie” and accusing international media of amplifying propaganda without proper verification. More recently, the IDF has admitted that it fired upon some individuals in the crowd, and said that there would be an investigation of those allegations.

Washington Post issues statement

The Washington Post altered its original headline, which read, “Israeli troops kill over 30 near U.S. aid site in Gaza, health officials say.” The outlet changed it to “More than 30 killed by gunfire near U.S. aid site in Gaza,” removing attribution of blame to Israel following Israel’s denial.

“The Post didn’t give proper weight to Israel’s denial and gave improper certitude about what was known about any Israeli role in the shootings,” The Post wrote in a statement on X. “The early versions fell short of Post standards of fairness and should not have been published in that form.”

White House weighs in

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the incident Tuesday, criticizing news coverage of the event.

“Unfortunately, unlike some in the media, we don’t take the word of Hamas with total truth,” Leavitt said. “We like to look into it when they speak — unlike the BBC who had multiple headlines they wrote: ‘Israeli tank kills 26,’ ‘Israeli tank kills 21,’ ‘Israeli gunfire kills 31,’ ‘Red Cross says 21 people were killed in an aid incident’ — and then, oh wait, they had to correct and take down their entire story because they couldn’t confirm anything.”

Israel does not permit journalists to enter Gaza, making it difficult for most news organizations to independently confirm any allegations.

BBC stands by report

The BBC has denied that it removed or corrected any of its reporting. In a statement, the outlet said: “The claim the BBC took down a story after reviewing footage is completely wrong. We did not remove any story and we stand by our journalism. It is vital to bring people the truth about what is happening in Gaza.”

The Associated Press, Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross also stood by those reports.

Narrative conflicts

The attack on Tuesday marks the third alleged Israeli attack in or around food distribution centers over a period of four days. The latest report followed two similar incidents on Sunday and Monday, where witnesses and officials said that Israeli troops opened fire near aid centers.

On Monday, CNN wrote that dozens of Palestinians were shot dead by the Israeli military near an aid distribution site, citing Palestinian officials, doctors and eyewitnesses. The IDF initially denied that Israeli troops fired “within or near” the site, but a spokesperson later acknowledged that they did, stating that they “didn’t hit that many people as far as we understand [and] we will continue to investigate.”

Hospital bombing controversy

The conflicting reports on the aid distribution center attacks reflect a much earlier incident regarding a 2023 attack on al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. Initial reports of hundreds of people dying in an explosion there, also citing the Gaza Health Ministry, blamed an Israeli airstrike. Later assessments, including from U.S. intelligence agencies, found it was more likely caused by a misfired rocket launched by a Palestinian militia group.

That hospital story led to corrections from The New York Times, though the BBC, which first reported the incident, defended its journalism. Other outlets have continued to attribute blame to Israel, while others retracted or corrected those allegations.

The BBC said at the time that it properly attributed the original claim to the Gaza Health Ministry and later updated the report with Israel’s denial.

IDF forces recently bombed the same hospital on April 13, 2025.

“Anyone watching, listening to or reading it can see we have set out both sides’ competing claims about the attack, clearly showing who is saying them, and what we do or don’t know,” the BBC said in a statement.

Gaza worse than hell on Earth, Red Cross chief tells BBC

Jeremy Bowen

International editor, in Geneva

Image source, Getty Images

Gaza has become worse than hell on Earth, according to the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mirjana Spoljaric.

Speaking in a BBC interview at the ICRC headquarters in Geneva, Spoljaric says humanity is failing. States are not doing enough to end the war, end the suffering of Palestinians and release Israeli hostages, she adds.

Palestinians, she says, have been stripped of human dignity. International humanitarian law is being hollowed out.

What is happening in Gaza, she says, surpasses any acceptable legal, moral and humane standard.

The ICRC is an international organisation that operates in war zones. It has over 300 staff in Gaza, most of whom are Palestinians.

Its surgical hospital in Rafah, in southern Gaza, is the closest medical facility to the area where many Palestinians have been killed during chaotic aid distribution in the last few days near sites run by the Israel and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

The ICRC says that yesterday morning its Rafah surgical teams received 184 patients, including 19 people dead on arrival and eight others who died of their wounds shortly afterwards. It was the highest number of casualties from a single incident at the field hospital since it was established just over a year ago.

The ICRC is considered the custodian of the Geneva Conventions. The fourth, agreed after World War Two, is designed to protect civilians in wars.

The rules of war, Spoljaric says, apply to all parties.

The Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023 were no justification for current events, she says. Spoljarić says the ICRC is deeply concerned about talk of victory at all costs, total war and dehumanisation.