The occupation army said it fired “near a few individual suspects” who left the designated route, approached its forces, and ignored warning shots, AP reported.
The near-daily shootings have come after an Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) established aid distribution points inside Israeli self-declared military zones. The United Nations has rejected the new system, saying it doesn't address Gaza's mounting hunger crisis and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon.
The Israeli army 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 Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, claimed no violence existed in or around them. On Tuesday, it acknowledged, though, that the Israeli army was investigating whether civilians were wounded “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor.”
The US-backed GHF has recently opened four aid distribution centres in southern and central Gaza.
The United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called for an independent investigation into the shooting, calling it "unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food".
Israel has come under mounting pressure to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where people are facing severe shortages of food and other essentials after Israel imposed a more than two-month blockade on all supplies.
‘Either way we will die’
The shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout, around a kilometer (1,000 yards) from one of the GHF’s distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah. The entire area is now an Israeli military zone where journalists have no access outside of army-approved embeds.
At least 27 people were killed early Tuesday, according to Zaher al-Waheidi, the head of the Health Ministry’s records department.
Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said its field hospital in Rafah received 184 wounded people, 19 of whom were declared dead on arrival and eight more who later died of their wounds. The 27 dead were transferred to Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis.
There were three children and two women among the dead, according to Mohammed Saqr, head of nursing at Nasser Hospital. Hospital director Atef al-Hout said most of the patients had gunshot wounds.
Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old displaced Palestinian from Rafah, said the shooting started around 4 a.m. in the city’s Flag Roundabout area, around one kilometer (1,000 yards) away from the aid distribution hub. He said he saw several people killed or wounded.
Neima al-Aaraj, a woman from Khan Younis, gave a similar account.
“There were many martyrs and wounded,” she said, saying the shooting by Israeli forces was “indiscriminate.”
She said she managed to reach the hub but returned empty-handed. “There was no aid there,” she said. “After the martyrs and wounded, I won’t return,” she said. “Either way we will die.”
Rasha al-Nahal, another witness, said “there was gunfire from all directions.” She said she counted more than a dozen dead and several wounded along the road. She said she also found no aid when she arrived at the distribution hub, and that Israeli forces “fired at us as we were returning.”
An Associated Press reporter who arrived at the Red Cross field hospital at around 6 a.m. saw wounded people being transferred to other hospitals by ambulance.
Outside, people were passing by on their way back from the aid hub, mostly empty-handed, while empty flour bags stained with blood lay on the ground.
Israeli soldiers killed
The Israeli army, meanwhile, said Tuesday that three of its soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on Israel's forces since it ended a ceasefire in March.
The occupation soldiers were killed in an explosion in the Jabaliya area, in northern Gaza on Monday, bringing the number of Israeli troops killed in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war to 424.
Israel has, in March, stepped up its genocidal war on Gaza, breaking the ceasefire as it sought to impose new conditions to change the agreement sponsored by Egypt, Qatar, and the US.
Israeli soldiers have killed at least 4,201 people in Gaza since Israel resumed its offensive, bringing the war's overall toll to 54,470, mostly women and children.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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