The Guardian / June 1, 2025
More than 20 people were killed on Sunday as they went to receive food at an aid distribution point set up by an Israeli-backed foundation in the Gaza Strip, according to a hospital run by the Red Cross that received the bodies.
Witnesses told the Associated Press (AP) that Israeli forces opened fire on people as they headed toward the aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). “There were many martyrs, including women,” the 40-year-old resident said. “We were about 300 metres away from the military.”
Media reports said dozens of people were being treated at the hospital after the latest incident at the controversial site in Rafah.
Officials at the field hospital did not say who opened fire but added that another 175 people were wounded. An Associated Press reporter saw dozens of people being treated at the hospital.
update
We have an update on reports that Israeli forces opened fire near a US-backed aid distribution site in Rafah, killing more than 20 Palestinian people (see opening post for more details on this).
Gaza’s civil defence agency said in an update that Israeli fire killed at least 22 people on Sunday, revising an earlier death toll.
“The number of martyrs from the massacre at the American aid centre in Rafah has risen to at least 22, with more than 120 wounded, including children,” civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
Gaza’s civil defence crews are the main emergency service, alongside ambulance crews, in the Strip and regularly help pull the living and the dead from underneath rubble after Israeli bombardments.
