The Israeli military opened fire near hundreds of Palestinians queuing for aid trucks in central Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least 25 people and wounding around 146 others, according to hospital officials and eyewitnesses.
The Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, which received many of the victims, reported 62 of the wounded were in critical condition and had been transferred to another medical facility in central Gaza.
An eyewitness, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said military drones were hovering overhead before soldiers in tanks and drones began firing. “It was chaotic and bloody,” he said, describing civilians scrambling for cover.
Israel has not yet issued a formal statement on the shooting. However, the military previously said it had fired warning shots at individuals whom forces believed were approaching in what it described as a “suspicious manner.”
United Nations officials reacted sharply to the incident. Thameen Al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s human rights office, told reporters in Geneva that the “weaponisation of food for civilians … constitutes a war crime.”
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), condemned the aid distribution process as “an abomination that humiliates and degrades desperate people,” according to a statement in Berlin. “It is a death trap costing more lives than it saves,” he added.
Israeli authorities defended the distribution system as essential to prevent Hamas from diverting aid for its own benefit, and to prevent the militant group from bolstering its operational resources.
The United Nations is calling for an urgent and impartial investigation into the killings and pressing Israel to fully reopen humanitarian corridors into Gaza “in accordance with international law and humanitarian principles.”