LAST UPDATE | 2 Jun

ISRAELI FORCES IN the Gaza Strip have opened fire as people headed towards an aid distribution site, killing at least three people and wounding dozens, health officials and a witness said.

The military said it fired warning shots at “suspects” who approached its forces in Rafah.

The shooting occurred at the same location where witnesses say Israeli forces fired a day earlier on crowds of people heading toward the aid hub in southern Gaza run by the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

The Israeli military said it fired warning shots on Monday towards “several suspects who advanced toward the troops and posed a threat to them”, around a kilometre away from the aid distribution site at a time when it was closed. The army denied it was preventing people from reaching the site.

Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Earlier today, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called today for an independent investigation into the deaths of at least 31 Palestinians near a US-backed aid distribution site in Gaza yesterday, after rescuers blamed the deaths on Israeli gunfire.

“I am appalled by the reports of Palestinians killed and injured while seeking aid in Gaza yesterday. It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food,” Guterres said in a statement.

“I call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for perpetrators to be held accountable.”

Yesterday, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) denied that its soldiers had opened fire on Palestinians gathering at the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid distribution site. 

The Palestinian territory’s civil defence agency said that Israeli fire had killed at least 31 people at the site and had wounded more than 170.

Witnesses said that drones and tanks began firing on the crowd as people waited for food at the hub. 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 Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) spokesperson 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

Today, Gaza’s civil defence agency said an Israeli strike on a home in the northern town of Jabalia killed 14 people.

“The number of martyrs from the targeting of the Al-Bursh family home has risen to 14, including six children and three women, in addition to more than 20 missing individuals still under the rubble,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told news agency AFP.

With reporting by – © AFP 2025 and Press Association