Palestinian witnesses told The Associated Press that Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on a nearby home before opening fire toward the crowd in the southern city of Khan Younis.

“There are reports of several casualties from IDF gunfire as the crowd approached. The details are being investigated,” it said, using an acronym for the Israeli Defense Forces.

The shooting did not appear to be related to a new Israeli- and US-supported aid delivery network that rolled out last month and has been marred by controversy and violence.

‘Aren’t we human beings?’

Yousef Nofal, an eyewitness, said he saw many people motionless and bleeding on the ground after Israeli forces opened fire.

“It was a massacre,” he said, adding that the soldiers continued firing on people as they fled from the area.

Mohammed Abu Qeshfa said he heard a loud explosion followed by heavy gunfire and tank shelling. “I survived by a miracle,” he said.

The dead and wounded were taken to the city’s Nasser Hospital, which confirmed the toll.

Samaher Meqdad was at the hospital looking for her two brothers and a nephew who had been in the crowd.

“We don’t want flour. We don’t want food. We don’t want anything,” she said.

“Why did they fire at the young people? Why? Aren’t we human beings?”

Palestinians say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds trying to reach food distribution points run by a separate US and Israeli-backed aid group since the centres opened last month. Local health officials say scores have been killed and hundreds wounded.

In those instances, the Israeli military has acknowledged firing warning shots at people it said had approached its forces in a suspicious manner.

Desperation grows as rival aid systems can’t meet needs

Israel says the new system operated by a private contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is designed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off aid to fund its militant activities.

UN agencies and major aid groups deny there is any major diversion of aid and have rejected the new system, saying it can’t meet the mounting needs in Gaza and that it violates humanitarian principles by allowing Israel to control who has access to aid.

Experts have warned of famine in the territory that is home to some 2 million Palestinians.

The UN-run network has delivered aid across Gaza throughout the 20-month Israel-Hamas war, but has faced major obstacles since Israel loosened a total blockade it had imposed from early March until mid-May.

UN officials say Israeli military restrictions, a breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting make it difficult to deliver the aid that Israel has allowed in.

Israel’s military campaign since October 2023 has killed more than 55,300 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Israel launched its campaign aiming to destroy Hamas after the group’s October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed around 1200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 251 hostage.

The militants still hold 53 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.