Israel, Gaza war: Thousands of Palestinians storm aid centres in desperation for food, IDF opens fire

Thousands of Palestinians stormed into sites where aid was being distributed by a foundation backed by the US and Israel, with desperation for food overcoming concern about biometric and other checks Israel said it would employ.

By late afternoon on Tuesday, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it had distributed about 8000 food boxes, equivalent to about 462,000 meals, after an almost three-month-old Israeli blockade of the war-devastated enclave.

In the southern city of Rafah, which is under full Israeli army control, thousands of people including women and children, some on foot or in donkey carts, flocked towards one of the distribution sites to receive food packages.

Videos, some of which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed lines of people walking through a wired-off corridor and into a large open field where aid was stacked. Later, images shared on social media showed large parts of the fence torn down as people jostled their way onto the site.

Israel and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said, without providing evidence, that Hamas, Gaza’s dominant militant group, had tried to block civilians from reaching the aid distribution centre.

Hamas denied the accusation.

“The real cause of the delay and collapse in the aid distribution process is the tragic chaos caused by the mismanagement of the same company operating under the Israeli occupation’s administration in those buffer zones,” Ismail Al-Thawabta, Director of the Hamas-run Gaza Government Media Office, told Reuters.

“This has led to thousands of starving people, under the pressure of siege and hunger, storming distribution centres and seizing food, during which Israeli forces opened fire,” he added.

The Israel military said its troops fired warning shots in the area outside the compound and that control was reestablished.

A UN spokesperson called images of the incident “heartbreaking.”

Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein wrote on X that 8000 “food packages” were delivered to Palestinians on Tuesday, the first day of what he described as an American initiative.

Some of the recipients showed the content of the packages, which included some rice, flour, canned beans, pasta, olive oil, biscuits and sugar.

Although the aid was available on Monday, Palestinians appeared to have heeded warnings, including from Hamas, about biometric screening procedures employed at the foundation’s aid distribution sites.

Israel says the Switzerland-based GHF is a US-backed initiative and that its forces will not be involved in the distribution points where food will be handed out.

But its endorsement of the plan and its closeness with the US has led many to question the neutrality of the foundation, including its own former chief, who resigned unexpectedly on Sunday.

The Israeli military said four aid sites have been established in recent weeks across the enclave, and that two of them in the Rafah area began operations on Tuesday and “are distributing food packages to thousands of families in the Gaza Strip.”

The GHF said the number of people seeking aid at one distribution site was so great at one point on Tuesday that its team had to pull back to allow people to “take aid safely and dissipate” and to avoid casualties. It said normal operations later resumed.

Israeli officials said one of the advantages of the new aid system is the opportunity to screen recipients to exclude anyone found to be connected with Hamas. Israel, at war with Hamas since October 2023, accuses Hamas of stealing supplies and using them to entrench its position. Hamas denies the accusations.

The Israeli military said in a statement that 400 humanitarian aid trucks were waiting in Gaza for distribution but that the UN was still refusing to “do its job.”

Last week Israel eased its blockade, allowing a trickle of aid trucks from international agencies into Gaza - just a fraction of the 500-600 trucks that the UN estimates are needed every day.