Is­raeli forces fired on peo­ple as they head­ed to­ward an aid dis­tri­b­u­tion site in Gaza on Tues­day, killing at least 27, Pales­tin­ian health of­fi­cials and wit­ness­es said, in the third such shoot­ing in three days. The army said it fired “near a few in­di­vid­ual sus­pects” who left the des­ig­nat­ed route, ap­proached its forces and ig­nored warn­ing shots.

The near-dai­ly shoot­ings have oc­curred af­ter an Is­raeli and U.S.-backed foun­da­tion es­tab­lished aid dis­tri­b­u­tion points in­side Is­raeli mil­i­tary zones, a sys­tem it says is de­signed to cir­cum­vent Hamas. 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 mil­i­tary said it “fired to dri­ve away sus­pects.” In a state­ment, army spokesper­son Effie De­frin said “the num­bers of ca­su­al­ties pub­lished by Hamas were ex­ag­ger­at­ed” but that the in­ci­dent was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. He said the army is not pre­vent­ing Pales­tini­ans in Gaza from reach­ing aid in the dis­tri­b­u­tion ar­eas, but rather al­low­ing it.

The Gaza Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Foun­da­tion, which op­er­ates the sites, says there has been no vi­o­lence in or around them. On Tues­day, it ac­knowl­edged that the Is­raeli mil­i­tary was in­ves­ti­gat­ing whether civil­ians were wound­ed “af­ter mov­ing be­yond the des­ig­nat­ed safe cor­ri­dor and in­to a closed mil­i­tary zone,” in an area that was “well be­yond our se­cure dis­tri­b­u­tion site.”

A spokesper­son for the group said it was “sad­dened to learn that a num­ber of civil­ians were in­jured and killed af­ter mov­ing be­yond the des­ig­nat­ed safe cor­ri­dor.”

Gaza’s rough­ly 2 mil­lion peo­ple are al­most com­plete­ly re­liant on in­ter­na­tion­al aid be­cause Is­rael’s of­fen­sive has de­stroyed near­ly all of Gaza’s food pro­duc­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties. Is­rael im­posed a block­ade on sup­plies in­to Gaza in March, and lim­it­ed aid be­gan to en­ter again late last month af­ter pres­sure from al­lies and warn­ings of famine.

‘Ei­ther way we will die’

Wit­ness­es have said the shoot­ings all oc­curred at the Flag Round­about, around a kilo­me­ter (half-mile) from one of the GHF’s dis­tri­b­u­tion sites in the now most­ly un­in­hab­it­ed south­ern city of Rafah. The en­tire area is an Is­raeli mil­i­tary zone where jour­nal­ists have no ac­cess out­side of army-ap­proved em­beds.

Yass­er Abu Lub­da, a 50-year-old dis­placed per­son from Rafah, said the shoot­ing start­ed around 4 a.m. Tues­day and he saw sev­er­al peo­ple killed or wound­ed.

Neima al-Aaraj, a woman from Khan You­nis, said the Is­raeli fire was “in­dis­crim­i­nate.” She added that when she man­aged to reach the dis­tri­b­u­tion site, there was no aid left.

“Af­ter the mar­tyrs and wound­ed, I won’t re­turn,” she said. “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.

When she reached the dis­tri­b­u­tion site, she found there was no aid left, she said. She gath­ered pas­ta from the ground and sal­vaged rice from a bag that had been dropped and tram­pled up­on.

“We’d rather die than deal with this,” she said. “Death is more dig­ni­fied than what’s hap­pen­ing to us.”

UN hu­man rights of­fi­cial con­demns shoot­ings

At least 27 peo­ple were killed ear­ly Tues­day, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s Health Min­istry.

Hisham Mhan­na, a spokesper­son for the In­ter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross, con­firmed the toll, say­ing its field hos­pi­tal in Rafah re­ceived 184 wound­ed peo­ple, 19 of them de­clared dead on ar­rival, with eight oth­ers lat­er dy­ing of their wounds.

The dead were trans­ferred to Nass­er Hos­pi­tal in the city of Khan You­nis. Three chil­dren and two women were among the dead, ac­cord­ing to Mo­hammed Saqr, head of nurs­ing at the hos­pi­tal.

Hos­pi­tal di­rec­tor Atef al-Hout said most of the pa­tients had gun­shot wounds.

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 re­turn­ing from the aid hub, most­ly emp­ty-hand­ed, while emp­ty flour bags stained with blood lay on the ground.

Je­re­my Lau­rence, a spokesman for the U.N. hu­man rights of­fice, told re­porters it al­so had in­for­ma­tion in­di­cat­ing that 27 peo­ple were killed.

“Pales­tini­ans have been pre­sent­ed the grimmest of choic­es: die from star­va­tion or risk be­ing killed while try­ing to ac­cess the mea­ger food that is be­ing made avail­able through Is­rael’s mil­i­ta­rized hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance mech­a­nism,” Volk­er Türk, the U.N. High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights, said in a state­ment.

The Gaza Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Foun­da­tion said it dis­trib­uted 21 truck­loads of food at the Rafah site on Tues­day, while its oth­er two op­er­a­tional sites were closed.

Dur­ing a cease­fire ear­li­er this year, around 600 aid trucks en­tered Gaza dai­ly.

3 Is­raeli sol­diers killed in north­ern Gaza

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary, mean­while, said three of its sol­diers were killed in north­ern Gaza, in what ap­peared to be the dead­liest at­tack on Is­rael’s forces since it end­ed a cease­fire with Hamas in March.

The mil­i­tary said the sol­diers, all in their ear­ly 20s, died dur­ing com­bat on Mon­day, with­out pro­vid­ing de­tails. Is­raeli me­dia re­port­ed they were killed in an ex­plo­sion in the Ja­baliya area.

Is­rael end­ed the lat­est cease­fire af­ter Hamas re­fused to change the agree­ment to re­lease more hostages soon­er. Is­raeli strikes have killed thou­sands of Pales­tini­ans since then, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s Health Min­istry.

Is­rael says the new aid dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem is de­signed to pre­vent Hamas from steal­ing aid. The U.N. says its own abil­i­ty to de­liv­er aid across Gaza has been hin­dered by Is­raeli re­stric­tions, the break­down of law and or­der and wide­spread loot­ing, but that there’s no ev­i­dence of sys­tem­at­ic di­ver­sion of aid by Hamas.

Hamas-led mil­i­tants killed around 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, and took 251 peo­ple hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, at­tack in­to south­ern Is­rael that ig­nit­ed the war. They are still hold­ing 58 hostages, a third of them be­lieved to be alive, af­ter most of the rest were re­leased in cease­fire agree­ments or oth­er deals.

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary cam­paign has killed more than 54,000 Pales­tini­ans, most­ly women and chil­dren, ac­cord­ing to Gaza’s Health Min­istry, which doesn’t say how many of the dead were civil­ians or com­bat­ants. The min­istry is led by med­ical pro­fes­sion­als but re­ports to the Hamas-run gov­ern­ment. Its toll is seen as gen­er­al­ly re­li­able by U.N. agen­cies and in­de­pen­dent ex­perts, though Is­rael has chal­lenged its num­bers.

Is­rael says it has killed around 20,000 mil­i­tants, with­out pro­vid­ing ev­i­dence. Around 860 Is­raeli sol­diers have been killed since the Oct. 7 at­tack, in­clud­ing more than 400 dur­ing the fight­ing in­side Gaza.

Rock­ets fired from Syr­ia

Sirens sound­ed across Is­rael late Tues­day night.

Is­rael’s army said that two rock­ets were fired from Syr­ia in­to open ar­eas in the Is­rael-an­nexed Golan Heights, mark­ing the first time a strike’s been launched to­ward Is­rael from Syr­i­an ter­ri­to­ry since the fall of for­mer Syr­i­an Pres­i­dent Bashar As­sad. A group call­ing it­self the Mo­hammed De­if Brigades claimed the at­tack in a post on Telegram. Lit­tle is known about the group, which first sur­faced on so­cial me­dia last month.

Is­rael has been sus­pi­cious of the Is­lamist for­mer in­sur­gents who formed the new Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment and has launched hun­dreds of airstrikes on Syr­ia and seized a U.N.-pa­trolled buffer zone on Syr­i­an ter­ri­to­ry since As­sad’s fall.

Syr­i­an state TV re­port­ed Is­raeli shelling hit the west­ern coun­try­side of Syr­ia’s Daraa province af­ter the rock­et launch.

Is­rael’s de­fense min­is­ter said it holds Syr­ia’s pres­i­dent re­spon­si­ble for every threat and fir­ing to­wards Is­rael, and that a “full re­sponse” will come as soon as pos­si­ble.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP)