Attacks on Gaza aid sites ‘a war crime', says UN

GENEVA: UN human rights chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday that "deadly attacks" on civilians around aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip constituted "a war crime". Rescuers in the Palestinian territory said Israeli fire targeting civilians near an aid distribution centre in the southern city of Rafah killed 27 people on Tuesday, raising an earlier toll. It came after a similar incident on Sunday when rescuers said 31 people were killed at the same location, witnesses saying they had been on their way to collect aid.
"Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza are unconscionable," Turk said in a statement. "For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This morning, we have received information that dozens more people were killed and injured." The US-backed GHF is a recently formed group that Israel has cooperated with to implement a new aid distribution mechanism in Gaza.
The United Nations does not work with the foundation because of concerns that it does not meet core humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence. Turk called for a prompt and impartial investigation into each attack, and for those responsible to be held to account.
"Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law, and a war crime," he said. "Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel's militarised humanitarian assistance mechanism. "This militarised system endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution, as the United Nations has repeatedly warned."
Tuesday's shooting in the southern city of Rafah came as the agency reported 19 people killed in other Israeli attacks in the territory, and as the Israeli army announced three soldiers had been killed in northern Gaza. "Twenty-seven people were killed and more than 90 injured in the massacre targeting civilians who were waiting for American aid in the Al-Alam area of Rafah," said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal, who earlier said that the deaths occurred "when Israeli forces opened fire with tanks and drones".
The Al Alam roundabout is about a kilometre (a little over half a mile) from a centre run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Rania al Astal, 30, said she had gone to the area with her husband to try to get food. "The shooting began intermittently around 5:00 am. Every time people approached Al Alam roundabout, they were fired upon," she said. "But people didn't care and rushed forward all at once — that's when the army began firing heavily." UN chief Antonio Guterres urged an independent investigation into that shooting, calling it "unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food".
Israel has come under mounting pressure to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where people are facing severe shortages after Israel imposed a more than two-month blockade on supplies. The blockade was recently eased, but the aid community has urged Israel to allow in more food, faster.
The US-backed GHF has opened a handful of aid distribution centres in southern and central Gaza, and says it has distributed more than seven million meals' worth of food. Israel has stepped up its offensive in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the war. The Israeli army said three of its soldiers had been killed in combat in northern Gaza, bringing the number of Israeli troops killed in the territory since the start of the conflict to 424. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says at least 4,240 people have been killed in the territory since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18, taking the war's overall toll to 54,510,mostly civilians. — AFP

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