Israel admits firing towards Gazans at US aid centre
Israel has admitted firing 'near' civilians in the vicinity of a Gazan aid centre after 27 people were reportedly killed.
The shooting on Tuesday morning is the third in as many days fuelling mounting criticism of Israel's controversial new aid delivery system. On Sunday, more than 30 people died in a similar incident.
Witnesses reported civilians being shot from quad-copter drones near the distribution hub, run by American contractors, in the Rafah area of southern Gaza.
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman said 'suspects' had ventured towards troops less than a third of a mile from the hub, prompting them to fire warning shots.
He said that 'after the suspects failed to retreat, the additional shots were fired towards a few individual suspects who advanced towards the troops'.
He added: 'The IDF is aware of reports regarding casualties, and the details of the incident are being looked into.'
The International Committee of the Red Cross said its Rafah field hospital had received 165 wounded people, eight of whom later died from their wounds. The hospital also received 19 people who were declared dead on entry.
The 27 bodies were transferred to the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, run by the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry, which said they had been killed on Tuesday morning.
Volker Turk, the UN's human rights chief, said the deadly attacks on civilians around aid distribution sites constituted a 'war crime'.
The UN, which used to deliver aid to community pick-up points until access was blocked in early March, will not collaborate with the new system because it claims it breaches humanitarian principles.
Israel has strongly attacked recent UN criticism of the aid scheme, accusing it of failing to condemn Hamas sufficiently.
There are now four distribution centres run by the Gaza Heath Foundation (GHF) in the largely devastated south of the Strip. The government claimed the new method of distribution was to stop aid being stolen by the terror group.
The humanitarian concerns come after Hamas supporters released a video appearing to show a man being savagely tortured for allegedly stealing food, as the group seeks to retain control of the civilian population.
Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old displaced Palestinian from Rafah, said the Tuesday's shooting started in the city's Flag Roundabout area, around one kilometre away from the aid distribution hub, at around 4am. 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, adding: 'There was no aid there. I won't return. Either way we will die.'
Rasha al-Nahal, another witness, said that 'there was gunfire from all directions'.
She said she counted more than a dozen dead and several wounded along the road. She also found no aid when she arrived at the distribution hub and that Israeli forces 'fired at us as we were returning'.
Speaking about Sunday's shooting, a witness, who did not want to be named, said that quad-copter drones had been used to tell Palestinians via loudspeakers to turn back because they had approached the aid site at the wrong time.
Mohammed al-Shaer, a 44-year-old witness, said: 'A helicopter and quad-copters started firing at the crowd to prevent them from approaching the tank barrier. There were injuries and deaths. I didn't reach the centre, and we didn't get any food.'
The army said it was 'not preventing the arrival of Gazan civilians to the humanitarian aid distribution sites' and described the reports of deaths on Sunday as 'fabrications' by Hamas.
GHF said the operations at its site went ahead safely on Tuesday, but added it was aware the military 'is investigating whether a number of civilians were injured after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone'.
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