At least 31 peo­ple were killed and over 150 were wound­ed on Sun­day while on their way to re­ceive food in the Gaza Strip, ac­cord­ing to health of­fi­cials and mul­ti­ple wit­ness­es. The wit­ness­es said Is­raeli forces fired on crowds around a kilo­me­tre (1,000 yards) from an aid site run by an Is­raeli-backed foun­da­tion.

The army in a brief state­ment said it was “cur­rent­ly un­aware of in­juries caused by (Is­raeli mil­i­tary) fire with­in the hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid dis­tri­b­u­tion site. The mat­ter is still un­der re­view.”

The foun­da­tion — pro­mot­ed by Is­rael and the Unit­ed States — said in a state­ment it de­liv­ered aid “with­out in­ci­dent” ear­ly Sun­day. It has de­nied pre­vi­ous ac­counts of chaos and gun­fire around its sites, which are in Is­raeli mil­i­tary zones where in­de­pen­dent ac­cess is lim­it­ed.

Gaza’s Health Min­istry said 31 peo­ple were killed and 170 oth­ers were wound­ed.

A new aid sys­tem marred by chaos

The Gaza Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Foun­da­tion ’s aid dis­tri­b­u­tion has been marred by chaos in its first week of op­er­a­tions, and mul­ti­ple wit­ness­es have said Is­raeli troops fired on crowds near its de­liv­ery sites. Be­fore Sun­day, at least six peo­ple had been killed and more than 50 wound­ed, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal health of­fi­cials.

The foun­da­tion says the pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty con­trac­tors guard­ing its sites have not fired on the crowds. Is­rael’s mil­i­tary has ac­knowl­edged fir­ing warn­ing shots on pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions.

The foun­da­tion said in a state­ment it dis­trib­uted 16 truck­loads of aid ear­ly Sun­day “with­out in­ci­dent,” and dis­missed what it de­scribed as “false re­port­ing about deaths, mass in­juries and chaos.”

‘The scene was hor­ri­ble’

Thou­sands of peo­ple head­ed to­ward the dis­tri­b­u­tion site in south­ern Gaza hours be­fore dawn. As they ap­proached, Is­raeli forces or­dered them to dis­perse and come back lat­er, wit­ness­es said. When the crowds reached the Flag Round­about, around 1 kilo­me­tre (half a mile) away, at around 3 a.m., Is­raeli forces opened fire, the wit­ness­es said.

“There was fire from all di­rec­tions, from naval war­ships, from tanks and drones,” said Amr Abu Tei­ba, who was in the crowd.

He said he saw at least 10 bod­ies with gun­shot wounds and sev­er­al oth­er wound­ed peo­ple, in­clud­ing women. Peo­ple used carts to fer­ry the dead and wound­ed to a field hos­pi­tal. “The scene was hor­ri­ble,” he said.

Most peo­ple were shot “in the up­per part of their bod­ies, in­clud­ing the head, neck and chest,” said Dr. Mar­wan al-Hams, a health min­istry of­fi­cial at Nass­er Hos­pi­tal, where many of the wound­ed were trans­ferred af­ter be­ing brought to the field hos­pi­tal run by the Red Cross.

He said 24 peo­ple were be­ing treat­ed in Nass­er Hos­pi­tal’s in­ten­sive care unit. A col­league, sur­geon Khaled al-Ser, lat­er said 150 wound­ed peo­ple had ar­rived, along with 28 bod­ies.

Ibrahim Abu Saoud, an­oth­er wit­ness, said the mil­i­tary fired from about 300 me­ters (yards) away.

Abu Saoud said he saw many peo­ple with gun­shot wounds, in­clud­ing a young man who he said died at the scene. “We weren’t able to help him,” he said.

Mo­hammed Abu Teaima, 33, said he saw Is­raeli forces open fire and kill his cousin and a woman as they head­ed to­ward the dis­tri­b­u­tion site. He said his cousin was shot in his chest and his broth­er-in-law was among the wound­ed.

“They opened heavy fire di­rect­ly to­ward us,” he said.

An AP re­porter ar­rived at the field hos­pi­tal at around 6 a.m. and saw dozens of wound­ed, in­clud­ing women and chil­dren. The re­porter al­so saw crowds of peo­ple re­turn­ing from the dis­tri­b­u­tion point. Some car­ried box­es of aid but most ap­peared to be emp­ty-hand­ed.

Of­fi­cials at the field hos­pi­tal said at least 21 peo­ple were killed and an­oth­er 175 were wound­ed, with­out say­ing who opened fire on them. The of­fi­cials spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were not au­tho­rized to speak to re­porters.

Gaza’s Health Min­istry pro­vid­ed the same toll and lat­er up­dat­ed it.

The UN says new aid sys­tem vi­o­lates hu­man­i­tar­i­an prin­ci­ples

Is­rael and the U.S. say the new sys­tem is aimed at pre­vent­ing Hamas from si­phon­ing off as­sis­tance. Is­rael has not pro­vid­ed any ev­i­dence of sys­tem­at­ic di­ver­sion, and the U.N. de­nies it has oc­curred.

U.N. agen­cies and ma­jor aid groups have re­fused to work with the new sys­tem, say­ing it vi­o­lates hu­man­i­tar­i­an prin­ci­ples be­cause it al­lows Is­rael to con­trol who re­ceives aid and forces peo­ple to re­lo­cate to dis­tri­b­u­tion sites, risk­ing yet more mass dis­place­ment in the coastal ter­ri­to­ry.

“It’s es­sen­tial­ly en­gi­neered scarci­ty,” Jonathan Whit­tall, in­ter­im head in Gaza of the U.N. hu­man­i­tar­i­an of­fice, said last week.

The U.N. sys­tem has strug­gled to bring in aid af­ter Is­rael slight­ly eased its near­ly three-month block­ade of the ter­ri­to­ry last month. Those groups say Is­raeli re­stric­tions, the break­down of law and or­der and wide­spread loot­ing make it ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult to de­liv­er aid to Gaza’s rough­ly 2 mil­lion Pales­tini­ans.

Ex­perts have warned that the ter­ri­to­ry is at risk of famine if more aid is not brought in.

The war be­gan when Hamas-led mil­i­tants stormed in­to south­ern Is­rael on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, and ab­duct­ing 251. They are still hold­ing 58 hostages, around a third be­lieved to be alive, af­ter most of the rest were re­leased in cease­fire agree­ments or oth­er deals.

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary cam­paign has killed over 54,000 peo­ple, most­ly women and chil­dren, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s Health Min­istry, which does not say how many of the dead were civil­ians or com­bat­ants. The of­fen­sive has de­stroyed vast ar­eas, dis­placed around 90% of the pop­u­la­tion and left peo­ple al­most com­plete­ly re­liant on in­ter­na­tion­al aid.

The lat­est ef­forts at cease­fire talks ap­peared to stum­ble Sat­ur­day when Hamas said it had sought amend­ments to a U.S. cease­fire pro­pos­al that Is­rael had ap­proved, and the U.S. en­voy called that “un­ac­cept­able.”

Al­so Sun­day, Is­rael said its forces killed the com­man­der of a mil­i­tant cell it says was be­hind an at­tack that killed 21 sol­diers in the war’s ear­ly months. It was among the dead­liest sin­gle events for the mil­i­tary in near­ly 20 months of fight­ing, ex­clud­ing Hamas’ ini­tial on­slaught. A blast from a rock­et-pro­pelled grenade fired by mil­i­tants trig­gered ex­plo­sives the sol­diers were lay­ing to blow up build­ings.

Magdy re­port­ed from Cairo. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Tia Gold­en­berg in Tel Aviv, Is­rael, con­tributed to this re­port.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) —