Gaza officials say Israeli forces killed 27 heading to aid site

Palestinian health officials and witnesses say Israeli forces fired on people as they headed toward an aid distribution site on Tuesday, killing at least 27, in the third such incident in three days.

The army said it fired “near a few individual suspects” who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots.

The near-daily shootings have come after an Israeli and US-backed foundation established aid distribution points inside Israeli military zones, a system it says is designed to circumvent Hamas.

The United Nations has rejected the new system, saying it does not address Gaza’s mounting hunger crisis and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon.

The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of casualties on Tuesday. It previously said it fired warning shots at suspects who approached its forces early Sunday and Monday, when health officials and witnesses said 34 people were killed.

The military denies opening fire on civilians or blocking them from reaching the aid sites.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, says there has been no violence in or around them. On Tuesday, it acknowledged that the Israeli military was investigating whether civilians were wounded “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone,” in an area that was “well beyond our secure distribution site”.

The shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout, around a kilometre from one of the GHF’s distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah.

The entire area is an Israeli military zone where journalists have no access outside of army-approved embeds.

The Israeli military meanwhile said three of its soldiers were killed in northern Gaza, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on Israel’s forces since it ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March.

The military said the three soldiers, all in their early 20s, fell during combat on Monday, without providing details. Israeli media reported that they were killed in an explosion in the Jabaliya area.

Israel ended the ceasefire after Hamas refused to change the agreement to release more hostages sooner.

Israeli strikes have killed thousands of Palestinians since then, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel also imposed a complete blockade on food and other imports for two-and-a-half months, leading to warnings of famine before the restrictions were loosened in May.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage in the October 7, 2023, attack into Israel that ignited the war.

They are still holding 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza 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 UN agencies and independent experts, though Israel has challenged its numbers.

Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. Around 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the October 7 attack, including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.