CAIRO/GAZA: An Israeli attack near an aid distribution point run by a private U.S.-based group killed at least 31 people in Gaza on Sunday, local health authorities said as Hamas and Israel exchanged blame over a faltering effort to secure a ceasefire.
The incident in Rafah in the south of the enclave was the latest in a series underscoring the volatile security situation that has complicated aid delivery to Gaza, following the easing of an almost three-month Israeli blockade last month.
“There are martyrs and injuries. Many injuries. It is a tragic situation in this place. I advise them that nobody goes to aid delivery points. Enough,” paramedic Abu Tareq said at Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis city.The Palestinian Red Crescent, affiliated with the international Red Cross, said its medical teams had recovered bodies of 23 Palestinians and treated another 23 injured near an aid collection site in Rafah. The U.S.-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation operates the aid distribution sites in Rafah.
The Red Crescent also reported that 14 more Palestinians were injured near a separate site in central Gaza. GHF also operates the aid distribution site in central Gaza.
Earlier, the Palestinian news agency WAFA and Hamas-affiliated media put the number of deaths at 30. Local health authorities said at least 31 bodies had so far arrived at Nasser Hospital.
Israel’s military said in a statement it was looking into reports that Palestinians had been shot at an aid distribution site but it was unaware of injuries caused by military fire. GHF denied anyone was killed or injured near their site in Rafah and that all of its distribution had taken place without incident.
The U.S. company accused Hamas of fabricating “fake reports”.
Residents and medics said Israeli soldiers fired from the ground at a crane nearby that overlooks the area, and a tank opened fire at thousands of people who were en route to get aid from the site in Rafah. Reuters footage showed ambulance vehicles carrying injured people to Nasser Hospital.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said Israel has turned the distribution sites into “death traps” for people seeking aid.
“We affirm to the world that what is taking place is a deliberate and malicious use of aid as a ‘weapon of war’, employed to exploit starving civilians and forcibly gather them at exposed killing zones, which are managed and monitored by the Israeli military,” it said.
Reda Abu Jazar said her brother was killed as he waited to collect food at an aid distribution centre in Rafah. “Let them stop these massacres, stop this genocide. They are killing us,” she said, as Palestinian men gathered for funeral prayers.
Arafat Siyam said that his brother had left at 11:00 p.m. the previous evening to collect food for his wife and eight children from the same distribution site in Rafah, south Gaza.
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