Israeli forces have fired toward crowds making their way to a food distribution point in the Gaza Strip, killing three people and wounding scores more, Palestinian health officials and witnesses said.
The Israeli military said it fired warning shots at people it referred to as suspects who it said had advanced toward its troops hundreds of metres from the aid site prior to its opening hours.
Experts and humanitarian aid workers say Israel’s blockade and 20-month military campaign have pushed Gaza to the brink of famine.
About 130 people have been killed in a number of shootings near aid sites run by the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which are in military zones that are off-limits to independent media.
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The Israeli military has acknowledged firing warning shots on previous occasions at people who it says approached its forces in a suspicious manner.
The foundation says there has been no violence in or around the distribution points themselves. But it has warned people to stay on designated access routes and it paused delivery last week while it held talks with the military on improving safety.
Two men and a child were killed and at least 130 were wounded on Tuesday, according to Nader Garghoun, a spokesman for the al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties. He said most were being treated for gunshot wounds.
Witnesses said that Israeli forces opened fire at about 2am local time, a few hundred metres from the aid site in central Gaza.
Crowds of Palestinians seeking desperately needed food often head to the sites hours before dawn, hoping to beat the crowds.
Mohammed Abu Hussein, a resident of the nearby built-up Bureij refugee camp, said Israeli drones and tanks opened fire, and that he saw five people wounded by gunshots.
Abed Haniyah, another witness, said Israeli forces opened fire “indiscriminately” as thousands of people were attempting to reach the food site.
“What happens every day is humiliation,” he said. “Every day, people are killed just trying to get food for their children.”
Meanwhile, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg left Israel on Tuesday after being detained aboard the Madleen, a Gaza-bound aid ship intercepted by the Israeli navy in international waters, the Israeli foreign ministry said.
Ms Thunberg was on a flight to France, where she would continue her journey to Sweden, the ministry said.
She was one of 12 passengers on board the Madleen, a UK-flagged boat carrying aid destined for people in Gaza. Others included French MEP Rima Hassan and the Al Jazeera journalist Omar Faiad.
The Madleen, operated by a pro-Palestinian activist group called the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters on Monday, some 200km from Gaza.
The ship was brought to the port of Ashdod in Israel where the crew was to be held ahead of deportation and its symbolic cargo of humanitarian aid seized.
Adalah, a legal rights group in Israel representing Ms Thunberg and the other activists, said she and three others had agreed to be deported.
The remaining activists refused deportation, were being held in detention and their case were set to be heard by Israeli authorities, the group said.
Israeli naval forces seized the boat early on Monday about 200km off Gaza’s coast, according to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the group that organised the journey.
The coalition leads an international grassroots campaign that opposes Israel’s long-standing naval blockade of Gaza by sending ships filled with humanitarian aid to the enclave. The Madleen had set sail from Sicily earlier this month.
“The ship was unlawfully boarded, its unarmed civilian crew abducted, and its life-saving cargo – including baby formula, food and medical supplies – confiscated,“ it said.
The boat, accompanied by Israel’s navy, arrived in the Israeli port of Ashdod on Monday evening.
The activists said they were protesting against the ongoing war and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel says such ships violate its naval blockade of Gaza.
Israel’s foreign ministry portrayed the voyage as a public relations stunt, saying on social media that “the ‘selfie yacht’ of the ‘celebrities’ is safely making its way to the shores of Israel”.
Sabine Haddad, a spokeswoman for Israel’s interior ministry, said the activists who were being deported on Tuesday had waived their right to appear before a judge. Those who did not will face one and will be held for 96 hours before being deported.
Ms Hassan, a French MEP who is of Palestinian descent, was among the volunteers on board. She has been barred from entering Israel because of her opposition to Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.
Amnesty International said Israel was flouting international law with the naval raid and called on Israel to release the activists immediately and unconditionally.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on Monday he had instructed that upon the boat’s arrival at Ashdod, the activists would be shown videos of atrocities committed during the October 7th, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
About 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and 250 taken to Gaza, where 55 are still held hostage, in the attacks, which triggered the ongoing conflict in Gaza, in which some 54,000 people have been killed.
