Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli troops killed at least 20 people waiting to collect food on Monday, June 16, the latest deadly incident near a US-backed aid center in the Palestinian territory's south.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that "the [Israeli] occupation forces opened fire" near the Al-Alam roundabout in the southern city of Rafah, where many were waiting to reach an aid distribution site. Bassal said that "20 martyrs and more than 200 wounded by occupation gunfire" were taken to nearby hospitals.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was looking into the report. Israeli restrictions on media in the Gaza Strip and other difficulties in accessing some areas mean journalists are unable to independently verify the tolls provided by the civil defense agency.
According to the rescue agency, dozens of Palestinians have been killed while trying to reach distribution points operated by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) since it began operating in late May. The civil defense agency said more than 20 Palestinians were killed on Saturday near another GHF site.
Israel has faced mounting international pressure over humanitarian conditions in Gaza, which the United Nations described in May as "the hungriest place on Earth." Before the GHF began operations, Israel had enforced a total aid blockade on Gaza that lasted more than two months. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA has said that Gaza's "entire population" of more than two million people was at risk of famine.
The UN and major humanitarian groups have refused to cooperate with GHF over concerns it is designed to cater to Israeli military objectives, with an OCHA spokesperson recently calling the US-backed aid operation a "failure... from a principled humanitarian standpoint."
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised in a telephone call Sunday to do more to bring aid into war-ravaged Gaza.