LONDON: A video shared on social media captured the moment terrified Palestinians were caught in gunfire as they tried to reach an aid hub in Gaza at the weekend.
The footage shows a large number of people packed into an area near a sand dune when gunshots fly over their heads. They drop to the floor in panic as the bullets hit the dune just meters from a group trying to take cover.
The video was filmed on Saturday near a distribution site run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah in the south of the territory, according to BBC fact-checkers.
The Israeli- and US-run organization began aid distribution operations in the territory in May. It has been widely condemned for the high number of civilian deaths near to its sites.
The UN said on Tuesday that at least 875 people had been killed near aid points in Gaza in the past six weeks, mostly at those run by the GHF.
Reports from the weekend said at least 31 Palestinians were shot dead on Saturday as they tried to access a GHF hub near Rafah. The Red Cross said its field hospital nearby received 132 patients, with the overwhelming majority suffering from gunshot wounds. The wounded told hospital staff they had been trying to reach food aid.
“Since the establishment of new food distribution sites on May 27, the field hospital has treated over 3,400 weapon-wounded patients and recorded more than 250 fatalities,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
“This figure exceeds all mass casualty cases treated at the hospital in the 12 months preceding May 27. This situation is unacceptable. The alarming frequency and scale of these mass casualty incidents underscore the horrific conditions civilians in Gaza are enduring.”
BBC Verify said it was unable to ascertain if the deaths took place at the exact scene of the video but said the images were taken 750 meters from the GHF’s Secure Distribution Site 2.
Satellite images taken a day later showed crowds gathered at the same spot with Israeli military vehicles stationed 350 meters away. The broadcaster said it spoke to journalists in Gaza and studied images from Planet Labs PBC to help verify the footage.
An Instagram post shows a victim in hospital recovering after being at the scene where the video was shot. He said he arrived in the area at about 7:30 a.m. and after two hours Israeli tanks and drones opened fire on the crowd.
“The gunfire at us was random,” he said. “Everyone threw themselves to the ground to take cover as bodies fell around them.”
The GHF told the BBC the video was not taken “in the vicinity of our site” but it was “trying to determine if it was involving an actual queue to our site which could be 1.5-2 km away.”
Chris Doyle, director of the London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding, told Arab News that the GHF hubs were “not food distribution centers but death traps.”
“That major international actors have not taken significant steps to stop this abomination in Gaza is an outrage,” he said.
Mustafa Barghouti, president of the Palestinian National Initiative, described the video as a “tragic scene.”
“The Israeli army shooting live ammunition at hungry Palestinians who were trying to get humanitarian aid from the so called ‘Gaza Humanitarian foundation center’,” he wrote on X.
The GHF started operating in Gaza after Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on humanitarian aid entering the territory, which has been decimated by an Israeli military campaign since October 2023.
The GHF system largely bypasses the traditional aid distribution mechanisms run by the UN.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described the GHF model as “inherently unsafe” and said it was killing people.
