Video shows Palestinians caught in gunfire near GHF aid hub in Gaza
The footage shows a large number of people packed into an area near a sand dune when gunshots fly over their heads. They drop to the floor in panic as the bullets hit the dune just meters from a group trying to take cover.
The video was filmed on Saturday near a distribution site run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah in the south of the territory, according to BBC fact-checkers.
The Israeli- and US-run organization began aid distribution operations in the territory in May. It has been widely condemned for the high number of civilian deaths near to its sites.
The UN said on Tuesday that at least 875 people had been killed near aid points in Gaza in the past six weeks, mostly at those run by the GHF.
Reports from the weekend said at least 31 Palestinians were shot dead on Saturday as they tried to access a GHF hub near Rafah. The Red Cross said its field hospital nearby received 132 patients, with the overwhelming majority suffering from gunshot wounds. The wounded told hospital staff they had been trying to reach food aid.
'Since the establishment of new food distribution sites on May 27, the field hospital has treated over 3,400 weapon-wounded patients and recorded more than 250 fatalities,' the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
'This figure exceeds all mass casualty cases treated at the hospital in the 12 months preceding May 27. This situation is unacceptable. The alarming frequency and scale of these mass casualty incidents underscore the horrific conditions civilians in Gaza are enduring.'
BBC Verify said it was unable to ascertain if the deaths took place at the exact scene of the video but said the images were taken 750 meters from the GHF's Secure Distribution Site 2.
Satellite images taken a day later showed crowds gathered at the same spot with Israeli military vehicles stationed 350 meters away. The broadcaster said it spoke to journalists in Gaza and studied images from Planet Labs PBC to help verify the footage.
An Instagram post shows a victim in hospital recovering after being at the scene where the video was shot. He said he arrived in the area at about 7:30 a.m. and after two hours Israeli tanks and drones opened fire on the crowd.
'The gunfire at us was random,' he said. 'Everyone threw themselves to the ground to take cover as bodies fell around them.'
The GHF told the BBC the video was not taken 'in the vicinity of our site' but it was 'trying to determine if it was involving an actual queue to our site which could be 1.5-2 km away.'
Chris Doyle, director of the London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding, told Arab News that the GHF hubs were 'not food distribution centers but death traps.'
'That major international actors have not taken significant steps to stop this abomination in Gaza is an outrage,' he said.
Mustafa Barghouti, president of the Palestinian National Initiative, described the video as a 'tragic scene.'
'The Israeli army shooting live ammunition at hungry Palestinians who were trying to get humanitarian aid from the so called 'Gaza Humanitarian foundation center',' he wrote on X.
The GHF started operating in Gaza after Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on humanitarian aid entering the territory, which has been decimated by an Israeli military campaign since October 2023.
The GHF system largely bypasses the traditional aid distribution mechanisms run by the UN.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described the GHF model as 'inherently unsafe' and said it was killing people.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
5 minutes ago
- Arab News
Palestinian man dies in Israeli jail a week after his arrest
LONDON: A 53-year-old Palestinian prisoner died in an Israeli jail after nearly a week following his arrest in Rummana, near Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Detainees' Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners' Society announced on Thursday the death of Samir Mohammad Yousef Al-Rifai. He is the 74th Palestinian prisoner to die in Israeli custody since October 2023 and the 311th since Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian Territories began in 1967. Al-Rifai, a father of five, was arrested by Israeli occupation forces at his home in Rummana on July 10. According to the Wafa news agency, he had pre-existing heart problems and required intensive medical follow-up. He was scheduled to have his first hearing in the Salem Military Court on Thursday. The commission and the PPS reported that Palestinian prisoners face systematic crimes, including torture, starvation, medical abuses, sexual assaults, and harsh conditions in Israeli prisons, which lead to the outbreak of diseases like scabies. The death of Al-Rifai 'constitutes a new crime added to the record of Israeli brutality, which commits all forms of crimes aimed at killing prisoners. This is another aspect of the ongoing genocide, and an extension of it,' they added. More than 10,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, the highest prisoner count since the Second Intifada in 2000, Palestinian prisoners' advocacy groups reported last week. As of early July, some 10,800 prisoners are said to be held in Israeli detention centers and prisons, including 50 women — two of whom are from the Gaza Strip — and over 450 children. Since the 1967 occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, over 800,000 Palestinians have spent time in Israeli jails, according to a UN report in 2023.
Asharq Al-Awsat
6 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
UN Humanitarian Chief Says Conditions in Gaza are ‘Beyond Vocabulary'
Food supplies are running out and civilians are being shot while seeking something to eat, Undersecretary-General Tom Fletcher said Wednesday. "Civilians are exposed to death and injury, forcible displacement, stripped of dignity,' Fletcher told the UN Security Council, emphasizing Israel's obligation under the Geneva Conventions to provide food and medical aid as the occupying power in Gaza. He also challenged the council to consider whether Israel's rules of engagement incorporate all the precautions to avoid and minimize civilian casualties. Twenty Palestinians were killed at a food distribution center run by an Israeli-backed American organization in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, mostly from being trampled, the group said. They were the first deaths reported at one of the Gaza Humanitarian Fund sites, although hundreds have been killed by Israeli forces on the roads leading to them, according to witnesses and health officials. Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 54 others, including 14 children, according to hospital officials.
Arab News
15 hours ago
- Arab News
Starvation among kids in Gaza reaches record levels, humanitarian chiefs tell UN Security Council
NEW YORK: Children in Gaza are suffering from the worst starvation rates since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023, aid officials told the UN Security Council on Wednesday, in a devastating assessment of the conditions young Palestinians in the territory face as they try to survive. 'Starvation rates among children hit their highest levels in June, with over 5,800 girls and boys diagnosed as acutely malnourished,' said the UN's humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher. Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on humanitarian aid earlier this year, and has only allowed a trickle of relief supplies to enter the territory since the end of May. The effects on the health of children have been catastrophic, according to the details presented to members of the Security Council. Levels of acute malnutrition have nearly tripled since February, just before the total blockade on aid was imposed. 'Children in Gaza are enduring catastrophic living conditions, including severe food insecurity and malnutrition,' UNICEF's executive director, Catherine Russell, told the council. 'These severely malnourished children need consistent, supervised treatment, along with safe water and medical care, to survive.' We're failing Gaza's children. Seen through their eyes, our failure is a betrayal of their right to be children. History will judge this harshly. So will the children. We call for a ceasefire in Gaza, protection of children and release of all hostages. — Catherine Russell (@unicefchief) July 16, 2025 Yet youngsters in the territory are being killed and maimed as they queue for lifesaving food and medicine, she added. Last week, nine children were among 15 Palestinians killed by an Israeli strike in Deir Al-Balah while they waited in line for nutritional supplies from UNICEF. 'Among the survivors was Donia, a mother seeking a lifeline for her family after months of desperation and hunger,' Russell said. 'Donia's 1-year-old son, Mohammed, was killed in the attack after speaking his first words just hours earlier. When we spoke with Donia, she was lying critically injured in a hospital bed, clutching Mohammed's tiny shoe.' Russell painted a bleak picture of desperation for the 1 million Palestinian children in the territory, where more than 58,000 people have been killed during the 21 months of war. Among the dead are 17,000 children — an average of 28 each day, the equivalent of 'a whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years,' Russell said. Youngsters also struggle to find clean water supplies, she added, and are therefore forced to drink contaminated water, increasing the risk of disease outbreaks; waterborne diseases now represent 44 per cent of all healthcare consultations. 'Thousands of children urgently need emergency medical support,' Russell said, and many of those suffering from traumatic injuries or severe preexisting medical conditions are at risk of death because medical care is unavailable. She repeated calls from other UN officials for Israel to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza 'at sufficient speed and scale to meet the urgent needs of children and families.' A new aid-distribution system, introduced and run by Israel and the US, has sidelined traditional UN delivery mechanisms and restricted the flow of humanitarian supplies to a fraction of what was previously available. Since the new system, run by the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, began operating, hundreds of people, including children, have been shot dead as they gathered to collect aid. Russell urged the Security Council to push for a return to UN aid-delivery systems so that essentials such as medicine, vaccines, water, food, and nutrition for babies can reach those in need. Fletcher, the humanitarian chief, told the council that the shattered healthcare system in Gaza meant that in some hospitals, five babies share a single incubator and pregnant women give birth without any medical care. He said the International Court of Justice has demanded that Israel 'take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance,' and added: 'Intentionally using the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare would, of course, be a war crime.' During the meeting, Israel faced strong criticism from permanent Security Council members France and the UK. The British ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, described the shooting of Palestinians as they attempted to reach food-distribution sites as 'abhorrent.' She called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and said the UK 'strongly opposes' the expansion of Israeli military operations. French envoy Jerome Bonnafont said Israel must end its blockade of humanitarian aid, and denounced the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation system as 'unacceptable and incompatible' with the requirements of international law. He said an international conference due to take place on July 28 and 29 at the UN headquarters in New York, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, would offer a 'pathway toward the future' and identify tangible ways in which a two-state solution might be reached to end the wider conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Dorothy Shea, the ambassador to the UN from Israel's main international ally, the US, said the blame for the situation in Gaza lay with Hamas, which continues to hold hostages taken during the attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the conflict in Gaza.
