Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
LAST UPDATE | 1 Jun
THE ISRAELI ARMY said Sunday that it “did not fire at civilians” within or around a US-backed aid centre in southern Gaza, hours after rescuers blamed Israeli fire for dozens of deaths and injuries near the site.
“In recent hours, false reports have been spread, including serious allegations against the IDF (military) regarding fire toward Gazan residents in the area of the humanitarian aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip,” the army said in a statement. “Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false.”
The IDF’s statement comes after reports that its forces opened fire on people near a US-backed aid distribution site in Gaza, killing at least 31 and wounding more than 170, according to the Palestinian territory’s civil defence agency.
Witnesses said that drones and tanks began firing on the crowd as people waited for food at a hub run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Witnesses also said some people we also killed and injured by Israeli gunfire.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said that “31 people were killed and more than 176 injured… after Israeli gunfire targeted thousands of civilians near the American aid centre in Rafah”, in southern Gaza.
A GHF spokesperson has dismissed the reports as “untrue and fabricated”, a statement contradicted by medical personnel at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where many of the injured were taken.
“There’s been a shooting at the GHF aid distribution complex in Rafah,” said British doctor Victoria Rose.
“The ambulances haven’t stopped coming,” she said.
British surgeon Dr Victoria Rose speaks from Nasser Hospital where she says "the ambulances haven’t stopped coming" after reports of an Israeli attack near an aid distribution site in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/VrHZYDdqla
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 1, 2025
Sameh Hamuda, 33, told news organisation AFP he had walked from Gaza City and spent the night with relatives in a tent near Rafah before heading to the aid centre at around 5 am to wait among a crowd of people.
“They began distributing aid, but suddenly quadcopter drones opened fire on the people, and tanks started shooting heavily. Several people were killed right in front of me,” he said.
“I ran and survived. Death follows you as long as you’re in Gaza.”
Abdullah Barbakh, 58, described “chaos, screaming, and overcrowding” at the scene.
“The army opened fire from drones and tanks. Chaos broke out, and the area was filled with martyrs and wounded. I don’t understand why they call people to the aid centres and then open fire on them,” he said.
“What are we supposed to do?”
Asked for comment, the Israeli military said it was “unaware of injuries caused by IDF (army) fire within the Humanitarian Aid distribution site. The matter is still under review.”
A GHF spokesperson said the reports were “untrue and fabricated”.
“All aid was distributed today without incident,” the spokesperson said, adding that “these fake reports have been actively fomented by Hamas”.
Tom Potoka, a consultant plastic surgeon at Nasser Hospital told Al Jazeera about the scenes following there today.
“The five operating theatres upstairs were fully occupied with patients who came in from this,” Potoka said.
The patients he had seen had a range of injuries including gunshot wounds, head injuries, and trauma to major blood vessels and abdominal organs.
#Gaza: aid distribution has become a death trap.
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) June 1, 2025
Mass casualties including scores of injured & killed among starving civilians due to gunshots this morning. This is according to reports from international medics on ground.
A distribution point by the Israeli- American plan was…
Today’s attack is the latest in a series of fatal incidents at aid centres in Gaza, where the UN says the entire population is at risk of famine.
On Tuesday, one person was killed and another 48 were injured, mostly by Israeli gunfire, at another aid distribution hub run by the GHF, a private organisation backed by the US government.
On Thursday, four people were killed when a crowd of desperate people stormed a UN World Food Programme warehouse.
In the Gaza Strip, aid is only trickling in after Israel partially lifted a more than two-month total blockade, and the United Nations has reported looting of its trucks and warehouses.
Israel has faced mounting international condemnation over the humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
The UN’s World Food Programme has called on Israel “to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster”, saying desperation was “contributing to rising insecurity”.
The GHF, which is administered by contracted US security with support from Israeli troops, began distributing food in the Gaza Strip on 26 May.
The United Nations and other major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the organisation, saying it violated basic humanitarian principles, and appeared crafted to cater to Israeli military objectives.
The head of UNRWA, the UN’s main aid agency in Palestine, said aid distribution in Gaza has become “a death trap”.
“With competing narratives and disinformation campaigns in full gear, international media must be allowed into Gaza to independently report on the ongoing atrocities including this morning’s heinous crime,” said Philippe Lazzarini.
An Oxfam worker based in Gaza told The Journal this week that the GHF model is “humiliating and insulting to the people of Gaza”.
“Why do we have to create a new humanitarian distribution system when we’ve been on the ground for decades?”
Officially a private effort, GHF said it had distributed 2.1 million meals as of Friday.
In a statement today, Hamas accused Israeli forces operating in Rafah of committing “a new massacre against hungry civilians who had gathered at the so-called ‘humanitarian aid’ distribution sites”, calling them “mass death traps, not humanitarian relief points”.
The Palestinian militant group said yesterday that it had responded positively to a US-backed ceasefire proposal, but Washington’s main negotiator criticised Hamas’s reply as “totally unacceptable”.
Hamas said it had emphasised the need for a permanent ceasefire – long a sticking point for Israel.
And a source within the Palestinian group’s political bureau added that it had also pushed for a “full Israeli withdrawal” from the Gaza Strip.
On Friday, Israel had warned Hamas to either accept the deal and free the hostages held in Gaza “or be annihilated”.
US envoy Steve Witkoff called Hamas’s response to its truce offer on Saturday “totally unacceptable”, and urged it to “accept the framework proposal we put forward”.
“That is the only way we can close a 60-day ceasefire deal in the coming days in which half of the living hostages and half of those who are deceased will come home to their families and in which we can have… substantive negotiations in good-faith to try to reach a permanent ceasefire,” he added in a post on X.
Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s October 2023 attack, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
With reporting from AFP
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say