The US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said Monday it was forced to close one of its aid distribution sites due to “chaos,” as Hamas authorities claimed Israeli forces and allied local gunmen fired at Palestinians heading to the facility.
The GHF on Monday opened three distribution points — one in Wadi Gaza and two in Rafah’s Tel Sultan — but said it was forced to later close one of the Tel Sultan centers due to the “chaos of the crowds.”
A GHF spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
The Hamas-run health ministry announced that six people were killed. Witnesses told the Associated Press that the gunmen appeared to have been allied with the Israeli military, operating in close proximity to troops and retreating into an Israeli military zone in the southern city of Rafah after the crowd hurled stones at them.
Heba Joda, who was in the crowd Monday, said gunfire broke out at a roundabout where previous shootings have occurred, around a kilometer (half a mile) from the aid site. She said the shots came from the “dangerous zone� where Israeli troops and their allies are stationed.
She said she saw men from a local militia led by Yasser Abu Shabab trying to organize the crowds into lines on the road. When people pushed forward, the gunmen opened fire. People then hurled stones at them, forcing them to withdraw toward the Israeli positions, she said.
The Abu Shabab group, which calls itself the Popular Forces, says it is guarding the surroundings of the GHF centers in southern Gaza. Aid workers say it has a long history of looting UN aid trucks. GHF has said it does not work with the Abu Shabab group.
Defense sources confirmed on Thursday that Israel was arming the group, which has been linked in the past to smuggling operations with Egyptian jihadist groups.
Hussein Shamimi, who was also in the crowd, said his 14-year-old cousin was among those killed.
“There was an ambush… the Israelis from one side and Abu Shabab from another,� he said.
Mohamed Kabaga, a Palestinian displaced from northern Gaza, said he saw masked men firing toward the crowds after trying to organize them. “They fired at us directly,� he said while being treated at Nasser Hospital, in the nearby city of Khan Younis. He had been shot in the neck, as had three other people seen by an AP journalist at the hospital.
Kabaga said he saw around 50 masked men with 4×4 vehicles in the area around the roundabout, close to Israeli military lines. “We didn’t receive anything,â€� he said. “They shot us.â€�
Nasser Hospital said several men had been shot in the upper body, some in the head. Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the Hamas-run health ministry’s records department, said six people were killed and more than 99 wounded, some of them at another GHF center in central Gaza.
The GHF, in a statement released overnight, slammed Hamas’s “explicit threats” against its staff and those who accept the aid it distributes.
“At the same time, Hamas endorsed the United Nations, an organization it has routinely stolen from, as the only legitimate providers of aid,” it said. “The contrast is telling. After delivering over 10 million meals, GHF has built a system that delivers aid directly to the people who actually need it. Despite these threats, we will continue to deliver urgent humanitarian relief with resolve and purpose.
“The international community, including the United Nations and other aid groups, must immediately and unequivocally condemn Hamas’s threats against both aid workers and civilians. There is no justification for targeting aid workers or the civilians they serve, or for silence from those who know better. Hamas must understand its actions are unacceptable, and the world is watching,” it added.
On Sunday, GHF said it delivered 11 trucks’ worth of aid to community leaders for distribution in northern Rafah, as part of a pilot program that will see supplies delivered directly to Gazans instead of forcing them to walk long distances and cross IDF lines in order to receive aid.
The agency has faced heavy scrutiny from other aid bodies, as well as the UN and foreign countries, which say that it does not sufficiently address the humanitarian needs in the war-torn Palestinian enclave.
Critics have also accused GHF of putting aid seekers in harm’s way, with operations beset by deadly incidents for multiple days in a row.
The first mass casualty event occurred last Sunday as hundreds of Gazans made their way to an aid distribution compound in Rafah — the only one open that day — after the partial easing of the more than two-month blockade on aid into the Strip.
Hamas-controlled health authorities in the war-torn enclave reported that 31 people were killed and nearly 200 were wounded in the predawn shooting last Sunday near the distribution center, for which the IDF largely denied responsibility.
The death toll could not be verified, nor could the subsequent Hamas-issued tolls of three killed last Monday and 27 killed on Tuesday in similar incidents.
Though the UN has continued to distribute aid in the Strip while GHF finds its footing, it has complained that it has been unable to deliver much of its humanitarian supplies due to IDF restrictions on movements and because roads that the military designates for its trucks to use are unsafe and vulnerable to looters.
Israel and the United States accuse Hamas of stealing aid, while the UN denies there is any systematic diversion away from civilians. The UN says the new system is unable to meet mounting needs and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon by determining who can receive it and by forcing people to relocate to where the aid sites are positioned.
As Israel pressed on with its renewed offensive against Hamas in Gaza, the military said Monday that it recently demolished a kilometer-and-a-half-long (1 mile) tunnel in Khan Younis in the Strip’s south.
The Paratroopers Brigade and Yahalom combat engineering unit operating in the area located and demolished the tunnel, which was used by Hamas operatives as a hideout, and dozens of weapons were found inside, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Additionally, the troops, with support from the Israeli Air Force, destroyed dozens of buildings that had been booby-trapped by Hamas, and a weapons depot, the army said.
“The buildings were rigged with numerous explosives weighing some five tons,” the IDF added.
Separately, during operations of the 98th Division in Khan Younis in the past day, the IDF said troops eliminated at least 10 terror operatives who were identified near the forces.
The troops killed the operatives with sniper fire and tank shells, the military said.
In northern Gaza, the IDF said the 252nd Division directed an airstrike against a cell of five operatives spotted near the forces.
Dozens more targets, including tunnels and operatives, were hit in airstrikes in the past day across Gaza, the military added.
In all, at least 108 bodies were brought to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run health ministry said.
The ministry says more than 54,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught.
Israel launched its war in Gaza following the Hamas assault on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw another 251 taken hostage. Terror groups in Gaza continue to hold 55 hostages, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF, and 20 who are believed to be alive. There are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 429.