Israeli forces killed dozens of starving Palestinians waiting for food rations arriving in a UN convoy in Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis, local health officials said.
At least 59 people were killed when Israeli tanks fired two shells at a crowd of thousands gathered on the main eastern road through Khan Younis, according to Palestinian health officials and doctors at a Gaza hospital.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs confirmed that those killed were waiting for food rations arriving in UN convoys.
Footage shared on social media showed around a dozen bodies lying on the street following one of the deadliest Israeli attacks on Palestinians awaiting aid since Israel eased its total siege of the territory last month and began allowing limited rations.
Palestinian medics said another 14 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and airstrikes elsewhere in the densely populated enclave, taking Tuesday's death toll to at least 73.
"All of a sudden, they let us move forward and made everyone gather, and then shells started falling, tank shells," Alaa, one eyewitness to the massacre, told Reuters at the Nasser Hospital, where more than 200 injured victims lay sprawled on the floor.
“The people are dying, they are being torn apart to get food for their children. Look at these people, all these people are torn to get flour to feed their children.”
Yousef Nofal, another eyewitness, said the heavy gunfire and tank shelling was a massacre and that he "survived by a miracle".
"We don't want flour. We don't want food. We don't want anything," Samaher Meqdad told the Associated Press at the hospital while searching for her two brothers. "Why did they fire at the young people? Why? Aren't we human beings?"
The Israeli military claimed its soldiers had only fired warning shots at the Palestinians. “Earlier today, a gathering was identified adjacent to an aid distribution truck that got stuck in the area of Khan Younis, and in proximity to IDF troops operating in the area,” the military said in a statement.
"The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimise harm as much as possible to them while maintaining the safety of our troops."
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli soldiers had killed 397 Palestinians, many trying to get food aid, and wounded more than 3,000 since late May.
Israel is channeling much of the aid it now allows into Gaza through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a group backed by Israel and the US which operates a handful of distribution sites in areas guarded by Israeli forces.
"The incident in question didn’t occur at a GHF site but rather near a United Nations World Food Programme location," the foundation said of the incident on Tuesday.
The group’s aid plan has been criticised by charities as well as the UN which say that it does not follow humanitarian principles.
In particular they question the group’s biometric scanning policies, which Israel claims are designed to prevent Hamas from profiting from aid, and say the foundation is unable to meet the mounting needs of the territory’s nearly two million people.
Israel's war on Gaza has killed over 55,300 Palestinians so far, nearly half of them women and children, according to Palestinian authorities, and turned much of the territory into ruins.
The Israeli air and ground assault began in October 2023 after nearly 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during a Hamas attack on southern Israel.
