Early this morning, there was a mass shooting of more than 125 Palestinians in Gaza, on their way by foot to a food distribution site in Rafah. At the time of this report, at least 32 of the casualties have died, according to hospital reports.
The IDF said that the Gazans had approached Israeli forces in the Rafah area “in a way that threatened the forces.... Troops operated to prevent the suspects from approaching them, called for them to distance themselves, and after they did not comply, the troops fired warning shots.” The IDF went on to claim that the incident took place a kilometer away from the aid site, that it was before dawn, and that the aid site was not yet passing out aid packages. It was unclear whether the IDF was actually claiming that it was unusual for “the suspects” to be travelling toward aid stations to get in line, prior to the dispensing of the packages.
Regardless, the IDF explained that they are “aware of reports regarding casualties” and, of course, the incident is under further review.
Reuters reported that one witness, Mohammed Al-Khalidi, told them that he was part of a group of Palestinians who had been told that the GHF aid distribution center was open, but when they arrived tanks began moving towards them and opened fire. He stated: “It wasn’t shots that were to scare us or to organize us, it was shots that were targeted to kill us, if they wanted to organize us they would have, but they meant to kill us.”
