Israel, army investigates possible war crimes over civilian deaths in Gaza

According to the article in the left-wing Israeli newspaper, Israeli soldiers were allegedly ordered to shoot Palestinians approaching humanitarian aid sites inside Gaza.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz strongly rejected the accusations and called the report's findings 'malicious falsehoods aimed at defaming' the army.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (Ghf), supported by an American private contractor, has distributed food parcels over the past month in four locations, mainly in the far south of Gaza.

"Ghf has no knowledge of any of these incidents, but these allegations are too serious to be ignored and we therefore call on Israel to investigate and publish the findings in a transparent and timely manner," the group said in a social media post.

Palestinians in search of food have often encountered chaos and violence en route and upon arrival at relief sites. The situation is also desperate, with tens of thousands of people searching for food after Israel imposed a two-and-a-half month siege on Gaza, blocking the entry of food, water and medicine into the territory pending the establishment of Ghf sites.

Thousands of Palestinians walk for hours to reach the assembly centres, crossing Israeli military zones where, according to witnesses, Israeli troops regularly open fire with heavy bursts to control the crowd. The Israeli army claims to have only fired warning shots.

The bodies of eight people who died Friday had come to Shifa Hospital from a Ghf site in Netzarim, although it was not immediately clear how they died, Mohamed Abu Selmyiha, the hospital's director, told the Associated Press. A Ghf spokesman, however, disputed the report, saying they were not aware of any incidents at or near their sites on Friday.

Twenty other bodies received by his hospital on Friday came from air strikes in northern Gaza, he said.

Mohammad Fawzi, a displaced person from Rafah, told the AP that he only managed to get empty boxes, not food, from the aid distribution centre in the Shakoush area of Rafah when he went there early Thursday morning. "They shot at us from 6am to 10am just to get aid and only a few people managed to receive it. There are martyrs and wounded. The situation is difficult," he said.

On Friday, the Medics Without Borders organisation condemned the distribution system calling it "a massacre masquerading as humanitarian aid" and called for its immediate closure. UN Secretary General António Guterres also called for a return to the UN's tried and tested aid distribution system in Gaza, where he said Israeli military operations had created "a humanitarian crisis of horrific proportions... The search for food must never be a death sentence,' Guterres stressed.

More than 6,000 people have been killed and more than 20,000 injured in Gaza since the ceasefire collapsed on 18 March. Since the beginning of the war, more than 56,000 people have been killed and 132,000 wounded, according to the Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters, but stated that women and children account for more than half of the 56,000 dead. Israel claims to only target militants and attributes the civilian deaths to Hamas, accusing militants of hiding among civilians.

The war between Israel and Hamas started following the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, when some 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage. About 50 of them still remain prisoners in Gaza. Among the latest casualties, six people were killed and ten wounded in Israeli attacks on a group of citizens near the Martyrs' Roundabout in Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip, officials at the Awda hospital in Nuseirat said.

The UN Secretary General meanwhile urged the leaders to show "political courage" and accept a cease-fire like the one between Israel and Iran.