IDF soldiers told to shoot at unarmed Gazans waiting for aid
Haaretz, Israel's longest running newspaper and its paper of record, reported that commanders had ordered troops to shoot at crowds to drive them away, even though it was clear they posed no threat.
According to Gaza's Health Ministry, 549 people have been killed and more than 4000 wounded near aid centres and in areas where people were waiting for UN food trucks since May 27, when the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started operating.
The GHF, which is a new aid organisation backed by Israel and the US, was tasked to take over aid operations in Gaza from humanitarian agencies. It has seen its distribution of aid marred by chaos.
The distribution sites typically open for just one hour each morning. According to officers who served in their areas, the IDF fires at civilians who arrive before opening hours to prevent them from approaching, or again after the centres close, to disperse them.
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One soldier told Haaretz that the IDF's "form of communication is gunfire".
He said: "We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred metres away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there's no danger to the forces.
"I'm not aware of a single instance of return fire. There's no enemy, no weapons."
The soldier added that he has heard this being referred to by soldiers as "Operation Salted Fish", which refers to the Israeli version of the children's game "Red light, green light".
An officer serving in the security detail of a distribution centre told the paper: "At night, we open fire to signal to the population that this is a combat zone and they mustn't come near.
"Once, the mortars stopped firing, and we saw people start to approach. So we resumed fire to make it clear they weren't allowed to. In the end, one of the shells landed on a group of people."
He also pointed towards other cases: "We fired machine guns from tanks and threw grenades. There was one incident where a group of civilians was hit while advancing under the cover of fog. It wasn't intentional, but these things happen."
Another senior officer told the paper that the normalisation of killing civilians in Gaza has often encouraged firing at them near the distribution centres.
He said: "The fact that live fire is directed at a civilian population – whether with artillery, tanks, snipers, or drones – goes against everything the army is supposed to stand for.
"Why are people collecting food being killed just because they stepped out of line, or because some commander doesn't like that they're cutting in?
"Why have we reached a point where a teenager is willing to risk his life just to pull a sack of rice off a truck? And that's who we're firing artillery at?"
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An IDF spokesperson told Haaretz that troops were "conducting systematic learning processes to improve their operational response" and to minimise, "as much as possible, potential friction between the population and IDF forces".
They said: "Recently, forces worked to reorganize the area by placing new fences, signage, opening additional routes, and more.
"Following incidents where there were reports of harm to civilians arriving at distribution centres, in-depth investigations were conducted, and instructions were given to forces on the ground based on lessons learned."
The number of fatalities near food distribution centres has risen sharply in recent weeks. According to Gaza's Health Ministry, 57 people were killed on June 11, 59 on June 17 and around 50 on June 24.
The UN and other humanitarian agencies have refused to take part in the new system. Thameen Al-Keetan, the UN's human rights office spokesperson, said on Tuesday that "the weaponisation of food for civilians" constitutes a war crime.
In the last 24 hours, Israeli forces killed at least 72 people in the Gaza Strip. Since October 7, 2023, a total of 56,331 Palestinians have been killed.
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