Israeli troops have opened fire towards crowds of Palestinians seeking food from distribution hubs in southern Gaza, killing at least 32 people, according to witnesses and hospital officials.
The two incidents occurred near hubs operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Most of the deaths occurred as Palestinians massed in the Teina area, around two miles from a GHF aid distribution centre east of the city of Khan Younis.
Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Basal said 22 people were killed near a site southwest of Khan Younis and four near another centre northwest of Rafah, blaming Israeli gunfire for both.
One eyewitness said he headed to the Al-Tina area of Khan Younis before dawn with five of his relatives to try to get food when Israeli soldiers started shooting.
“My relatives and I were unable to get anything,” Abdul Aziz Abed, 37, said.
“Every day I go there and all we get is bullets and exhaustion instead of food.”
Mahmoud Mokeimar said he was walking with masses of people – mostly young men – towards the food hub when troops fired warning shots as the crowd advanced, before opening fire towards the marching people.
“It was a massacre… the occupation opened fire at us indiscriminately,” he said, adding that he managed to flee but saw at least three motionless bodies on the ground, and many other wounded.
Bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike in the western part of Rafah are brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis
Akram Aker said troops fired machine guns mounted on tanks and drones.
“They encircled us and started firing directly at us,” he said.
Monzer Fesifes, a Palestinian-Jordanian, said his 19-year-old son Hisham was among those killed in the Teina area.
“He went to bring food from the failed US, Zionist aid to feed us,” the father of six said, pleading for the Jordanian government to help evacuate them from the Palestinian enclave.
The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said it received 25 bodies, along with dozens of wounded.
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Seven other people, including one woman, were killed in the Shakoush area, hundreds of yards north of another GHF hub in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, the hospital said. The toll was also confirmed by the health ministry.
Dr Mohamed Saker, the head of Nasser’s nursing department, said it received 70 wounded people.
He said most of the casualties were shot in the head and chest, and some were placed in the already overwhelmed intensive care unit.
“The situation is difficult and tragic,” he said, adding that the facility lacks medical supplies to treat the daily flow of casualties.
Palestinians mourn for those killed in an Israeli attack in Rafah
Meanwhile, Fares Awad, head of the Health Ministry’s ambulance and emergency servcie in northern Gaza, confirmed the two deaths in Gaza City.
He said an air strike hit a tent in a camp sheltering displaced families in the courtyard of the Development Ministry.
Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians are living through a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, and the territory is on the edge of famine, according to food security experts.
Trump says ten hostages to be released ‘shortly’
The attacks come as US President Donald Trump said another ten hostages will be released from Gaza shortly, without providing additional details.
Mr Trump made the comment during a dinner with politicians at the White House, lauding the efforts of his special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Israeli and Hamas negotiators have been taking part in the latest round of ceasefire talks in Doha since 6 July, discussing a US-backed proposal for a 60-day ceasefire.
“We got most of the hostages back. We’re going to haveanother 10 coming very shortly, and we hope to have thatfinished quickly,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Trump has been predicting for weeks that a ceasefire and hostage-release deal was imminent, but agreement has proven elusive.
A spokesperson for the armed wing of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, yesterday said the group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, but could revert to insisting on a full package deal if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations.
Posters of Israelis held hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza since the 7 October attacks
The truce proposal calls for ten hostages held in Gaza to be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days.
In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed more than 58,600 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killedas a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel says missile launched by Yemen’s Houthis was intercepted
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi militant group said it had attacked Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile, while the Israeli military said the projectile was intercepted after air raid sirens were triggered in several parts of the country.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones the Houthis have launched at Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
The Iran-aligned Houthis have been firing at Israel and attacking shipping lanes. Traffic through the Red Sea, a critical waterway for the world’s oil and commodities, has dropped since the militia began targeting ships in November 2023 in what the group said was solidarity with Palestinians against Israel in the Gaza war.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than ten days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the 21-month war that has laid waste to the Palestinian enclave.
Earlier yesterday, Hamas said that while the group favours reaching an interim truce, if such an agreement is not reachedin current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a fullpackage deal to end the conflict.
Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of obstructing progress towards a deal.
