Israel challenges Hamas numbers amid new Gaza aid distribution system

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces fired on people as they headed toward an aid distribution site in Gaza on Tuesday. The army said it fired “near a few individual suspects” who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots.

The near-daily shootings have occurred after an Israeli and U.S.-backed foundation established aid distribution points inside Israeli military zones, a system it says is designed to circumvent Hamas.

The Israeli military said it “fired to drive away suspects.” The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 27 were killed. In a statement, Israeli army spokesperson Effie Defrin said “the numbers of casualties published by Hamas were exaggerated” but that the incident was being investigated. He said the army is not preventing Palestinians in Gaza from reaching aid in the distribution areas, but rather allowing it.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, says there has been no violence in or around them. On Tuesday, it acknowledged that the Israeli military was investigating whether civilians were wounded “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone,” in an area that was “well beyond our secure distribution site.”

A spokesperson for the group said it was “saddened to learn that a number of civilians were injured and killed after moving beyond the designated safe corridor.”

The shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout, around a half-mile from one of the GHF’s distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it distributed 21 truckloads of food at the Rafah site on Tuesday, while its other two operational sites were closed.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, said three of its soldiers were killed in northern Gaza, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on Israel’s forces since it ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March.

The military said the soldiers, all in their early 20s, died during combat on Monday. Israeli media reported they were killed in an explosion in the Jabaliya area.

Israel says the new aid distribution system is designed to prevent Hamas from stealing aid.

Hamas-led terrorists killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel that ignited the war. They are still holding 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, which doesn’t say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.

Israel says it has killed around 20,000 terrorists. Around 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Oct. 7 attack, including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.