Fourteen Palestinians were killed in violence near a food distribution route in Rafah, according to Gaza's Health Ministry and local hospitals. Nasser Hospital said it received 14 bodies from aid-related incidents, while the ministry's records chief reported more than 99 people injured.
Witnesses told the Associated Press that Israeli forces and armed men aligned with them fired toward a crowd travelling to an Israeli- and U.S.-supported food distribution center. The shooting occurred around a roundabout roughly one kilometre from the site, in an area close to Israeli military lines. The Israeli military did not immediately answer AP's request for comment on the June 9 incident.
One witness, Heba Joda, said members of a local militia led by Yasser Abu Shabab had tried to organize people into lines. According to her account, the gunmen fired after the crowd moved forward and later withdrew toward Israeli positions when people threw stones. Other witnesses receiving treatment said masked men opened fire while attempting to control the crowd. AP reported seeing several patients with neck wounds at Nasser Hospital.
The Abu Shabab group, which calls itself the Popular Forces, says it guards areas surrounding the distribution centers in southern Gaza. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the private contractor operating the sites, has said it does not work with that group. Israel had recently acknowledged backing local armed groups opposed to Hamas, according to AP.
The incident formed part of a recurring pattern around the new food system. Gaza's Health Ministry said at least 127 people had been killed and hundreds wounded in shootings since its rollout the previous month. Palestinians have repeatedly accused Israeli forces of firing toward crowds. In earlier cases, Israel said troops used warning shots or fired toward people it described as approaching forces in restricted military areas.
GHF has maintained that violence did not occur in or immediately around its centers, while warning recipients that leaving the military-designated access road was dangerous. It closed the Rafah location on June 9 because of crowd chaos, AP reported.
The accounts placed the casualties on the approach to the distribution point, a distinction relevant to competing statements about safety inside the centers. For people seeking food, however, the route and destination formed one access system.\n\nIsrael and the United States said the distribution structure was designed to keep aid from Hamas. The United Nations and major aid organizations rejected that model, arguing it could not meet Gaza's needs and objecting to its operation in militarized zones. The June 9 deaths sharpened scrutiny of the journey to the centers as well as conditions at the sites themselves.
