Israel kills 31 aid seekers, injures 200 in mass shooting at Rafah distribution point

Thirty-one people were killed in the early hours of Sunday morning at an aid distribution point in Rafah, south Gaza, where Israeli forces once again opened fire on aid seekers waiting to pick up supplies.

The mass shooting was the most violent yet at the Rafah site, where Israeli forces and aircraft have repeatedly shot at crowds of people since the site opened last week.

Following almost three months of a total siege, the Rafah distribution site is one of several zones that Israel has opened to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a company based in the United States and endorsed by Israel as part of its plans to control aid distribution across the strip — a move Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed is necessary to prevent Hamas stealing aid.

Mohamed Gharid was among the thousands of people who began to gather near Rafah late on Saturday night, waiting for the distribution zone’s gates to open, he told Mada Masr. They spent the night, he said, and people slept in the streets or along the shore.

At dawn, crowds began moving along a designated route to the distribution point, Gharib continued. Another eyewitness, who had traveled south from the Nuseirat camp to the coastal Mawasi region near Rafah in hopes of receiving food aid, said thousands of people were directed from Mawasi along a specific path leading to the distribution point.

The US aid distribution point is located south of the Morag corridor, a zone between Rafah and Khan Younis that Israeli forces bulldozed and occupied in early April to separate the two governorates.

As aid seekers proceeded along the designated path, an Israeli quadcopter appeared overhead, colliding with high-voltage power lines before crashing and falling into the crowd, Gharib recalled.

Immediately afterward, heavy rounds of fire broke out in the direction of civilians. Many were killed or injured. More quadcopters soon swarmed the area, firing at civilians, while “insanely” heavy artillery shelling also rang out, he said.

The second eyewitness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described “Israeli military vehicles coming out from all directions and opening heavy fire on the people.”

“The scene was horrific,” they continued. “Drones and vehicles were firing everywhere. Many were killed and dozens were wounded.”

Thirty-one people were killed in total, Gaza Government Media Office head Ismail Thawabta said in a statement on Sunday morning, while hospitals received more than 200 injured patients, 35 of them in critical condition, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.

The ministry noted that medical services were severely strained by extreme overcrowding and a lack of resources at hospitals, which have not received new supplies since Israel imposed a full blockade on the strip three months ago. “Shortages of surgical, operating and intensive care supplies have reached their worst,” the Sunday morning statement read.

Ambulance services are also unable to access the Rafah distribution point, which is adjacent to the Morag militarized zone occupied by Israel. Last week, the civil defense agency said it had resorted to transporting the wounded and dead on animal-drawn carts or civilian vehicles.

The second eyewitness described their efforts to get the injured to hospitals. “We fell back while the bodies of the dead lay on the ground. We couldn’t get close until the shooting subsided a little,” they said. “Then people began carrying the dead onto carts.”

“Women were among those killed,” the eyewitness said. “Two or three at a time were wrapped in blankets and taken away on carts.”

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations in Gaza last week at sites where Palestinians are required to undergo security checks and interrogation by the Israeli military before being permitted to access rationed portions of aid supplies.

Israeli forces have also carried out multiple arrests among aid seekers at the distribution sites situated near military zones dubbed by Israel as the Morag and Netsarim corridors.

At the same time, the Occupation military has allowed international humanitarian organizations, such as the World Food Program, only limited access to the strip — restrictions the organization says have severely constrained its capacity to help those in need.

Cases of malnutrition have surged since March, when Israel broke the ceasefire agreement and imposed a full blockade on Gaza to pressure Hamas into delivering all remaining prisoners held in its custody outside of the ceasefire framework.As starvation spreads, incidents of theft have also become widespread, making neighborhoods, bakeries and warehouses increasingly unsafe.