Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic images and descriptions of violence.
More than a dozen eyewitnesses, including those wounded in the attack, said Israeli troops shot at crowds in volleys of gunfire that occurred sporadically through the early hours of Sunday morning. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the US and Israeli-backed aid initiative that runs the site, said that Israeli forces were operating in the area during the same period.
Weapons experts said the rate of gunfire heard in the footage, as well as images of bullets retrieved from victims, were consistent with machine guns used by the Israeli military that can be mounted on tanks. Multiple eyewitnesses said that they saw gunfire emanating from Israeli tanks nearby.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially said on Sunday that its forces did not fire at civilians “while they were near or within the aid site.” An Israeli military source later acknowledged that troops had fired “warning shots” at suspects about 1 kilometer (1,093 yards) away.
During a press conference on Tuesday, IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said the military investigated and found its troops played no role in any mass casualty event. Defrin said: “This week, it was claimed that the IDF fired at civilians in an aid distribution area. This report is entirely false and echoes the propaganda of the terrorist organization Hamas… Regarding the incident on Sunday – it simply didn’t happen!”
Defrin also suggested casualty figures provided by the Palestinian health ministry were inflated, but did not elaborate as to how many people the military believed had been killed or injured.
Sunday’s mass shooting, which the Palestinian health ministry said killed at least 31 Palestinians and injured dozens, was the deadliest incident involving aid distribution in recent months. It comes amid warnings from the United Nations that the new aid distribution mechanism has become a “death trap” for desperate people seeking food in the strip.
Thousands of starving Palestinians had gathered in the sandy bulldozed area near the GHF-run site before the gates opened on Sunday, braving chaotic scenes when gunfire struck the crowd.
“No one move, stay in your place… no one move!” one Palestinian man is heard yelling in a series of videos posted to TikTok on Sunday, filmed along the coast where crowds had gathered near the aid site.
After the US-backed private foundation finally opened the site at 5:00 a.m., witnesses said the Israeli military’s gunfire continued nearby. Surveillance footage shared by GHF shows crowds of onrushing Palestinians scrambling to reach the limited boxes of food as tracer fire explodes into the night sky in the distance.
By sunrise, the extent of the catastrophe was undeniable. Videos captured bloodied bodies of Palestinians scattered across the sands, roughly a half mile from the food distribution center.
Similar deadly incidents on Monday and Tuesday near the same site have raised further questions about whether the militarized aid initiative backed by the US and approved by Israel can deliver food supplies safely. In the subsequent episodes, the IDF acknowledged that Israeli troops had fired warning shots in the area. GHF said none of the shootings occurred within or adjacent to their distribution sites, adding that the location of the shootings was “an area well beyond our secure distribution site.”
For Saqer, who said he managed to finally reach the aid site and escaped with whatever he could carry, the harrowing night still weighs heavily on him.
“We survived a night that was worse than we could imagine,” he said. “The reality for people was one of death and hunger searching for food.”
Videos capture deadly chaos
When GHF announced its distribution plans for Sunday, the instructions were direct: only one aid site would be open starting at 5:00 a.m., and the IDF would be present in the area to secure passage on a designated route.
It also warned – albeit after gunfire reportedly already erupted – that the Israeli military would be “active” in the area ahead of the site’s opening.
“Using the passage before 5:00 a.m. is prohibited, as we were informed by the military that it will be active in the area before and after the specified safe hours,” the GHF said in a release on Facebook at 4 a.m. “We remind all residents to stay on the road — straying from it poses a significant danger.”
Having endured an 11-week Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid, thousands of desperate Palestinians began making their way down Al-Rasheed Street in hopes of being among the first to reach the aid site – the only one operating in all of Gaza that day – before the limited supplies ran out.
“I could hear the screams of young people and others from their injuries,” Saqer said. “In front of me were four young men with direct injuries to the head… there was a person next to me who was injured by a bullet in his eye.”
He and others said a quadcopter drone appeared above the crowd, with the voice on its speaker telling people to turn around. But amid the warning, gunfire crackled all around them.
“Even retreating was almost impossible, and everyone was lying on the ground unable to lift their heads because if you lifted your head, you would get shot.”
As the chaos unfolded near the Al-Alam area, the GHF aid site officially opened at 5:00 a.m. Security video of the location released by the organization, which was labeled as beginning at 5:02 a.m., shows crowds of Palestinians running into the fenced distribution center.
Based on the erratic nature of the sound, Maher said that the shots seemed to be spread out, fired repeatedly in one direction. “Since the cracks are irregular, it seems more like the gunfire was being sprayed over the area.”
Trevor Ball, a former US Army senior explosive ordnance disposal team member, said the rate of fire was consistent with the FN MAG, a heavily-used machine gun in the Israeli military’s arsenal. The FN MAG is commonly equipped on the IDF’s Merkava tanks, which several eyewitnesses said they saw open fire on the crowds.
Ball also said the tracer fire – ammunition containing a pyrotechnic charge illuminating its trajectory – seen in the GHF’s footage is consistent with the use of machine guns. “Typically belt fed machine guns have tracer rounds inserted every few rounds. So while only 3 tracers are visible in the video, more rounds were fired.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross said that its nearby field hospital was overwhelmed by patients, describing the carnage as the “highest number of weapon-wounded in a single incident” since it opened over a year ago. Other dead and wounded were taken to Nasser Hospital.
“It’s difficult to describe what we saw with the young and the old, there was severe injuries to the head, severe injuries to the lung,” recalled Dr. Ahmed Abu Sweid, an Australian working at the Nasser medical complex.
“There was a heavy proportion of head-targeted injuries from bullet wounds.”
GHF, which runs the site, insisted: “There was no gunfire in the (distribution) center and also not in the surrounding area.”
“All aid was distributed today without incident. We have heard that these fake reports have been actively fomented by Hamas. They are untrue and fabricated.”
The IDF said allegations that Israeli soldiers fired on Gazans near or within the aid distribution site were “false reports.” It added: “Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false.”
Yazeed, 13, was shot in the stomach by gunfire from an Israeli tank and survived his injuries, according to his dad.
Mohammad Abu Rezeq was shot in the stomach upon arriving at Al-Alam where he said Israeli forces were deliberately targeting the crowd.
“I have seen a lot of soldiers in this war. When they want to clear an area or warn you, they shoot around you. But yesterday, they were shooting to kill us,” Abu Rezeq said.
Not an isolated incident
The chaos in the early hours of Sunday morning was not an isolated incident. In consecutive days since, Palestinians attempting to reach the GHF’s aid distribution sites have come under fire by the Israeli military.
After the intense gunfire near the Al-Alam roundabout on Sunday, GHF’s Facebook posts included updated maps of the safe route for the following days. The new maps included a large, red stop sign at Al-Alam.
On Tuesday, nearly 30 people were killed and dozens wounded while making their way to the aid sites in Tel al-Sultan in Rafah, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health and Nasser Hospital.
The Israeli military said that its forces opened fire multiple times after identifying “several suspects moving toward them, deviating from the designated access routes.”
“The troops carried out warning fire, and after the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects who advanced toward the troops,” the IDF said in a statement, adding they were looking into reports of casualties.
While the Israeli military has acknowledged firing warning shots in the area three days in a row, posts from GHF’s Facebook page show the organization works in close coordination with the IDF to establish safe, defined routes.
GHF was set up amid Israeli accusations that Hamas is stealing aid in Gaza and profiting from sales, though Israel hasn’t presented any evidence publicly to back up the claim.
UN aid groups, such as UNRWA, typically check identification and rely on a database of registered families when distributing aid.
But GHF is not screening Palestinians at aid distribution sites, despite Israeli officials saying that additional security measures were a core reason for the creation of the new program.
UN aid agencies have criticized GHF’s aid mechanism, saying it violates humanitarian principles and raises the risks for Palestinians.
Criticism has been mounting against both Israel and GHF after chaos broke out last week when tens of thousands of starving Palestinians arrived at two new food distribution sites.
The UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, was scathing in his assessment to the UN Security Council late last month.
“It restricts aid to only one part of Gaza, while leaving other dire needs unmet,” he said.
“It makes aid conditional on political and military aims. It makes starvation a bargaining chip. It is cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement.”
Video edited by Oscar Featherstone in London. Tareq Al Hilou in Gaza contributed to this report.