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Sunday, August 3, 2025
Gaza hospital officials, witnesses say 23 killed seeking aid near GHF sites by Israeli fire
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Israeli forces killed at least 23 Palestinians seeking food in the Gaza Strip, according to hospital officials and witnesses, who describe facing gunfire as hungry crowds surged around aid sites.
Yousef Abed, among the crowds en route to a food distribution point, describes coming under what he called indiscriminate fire, looking around and seeing at least three people bleeding on the ground.
“I couldn’t stop and help them because of the bullets,” he says.
Southern Gaza’s Nasser Hospital says it had received bodies from near multiple distribution sites, including eight from Teina, about three kilometers (1.8 miles) away from a distribution site in Khan Younis, which is operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private US- and Israeli-backed contractor that took over aid distribution more than two months ago.
The hospital also received one body from Shakoush, an area hundreds of meters (yards) north of a different GHF site in Rafah. Another nine were also killed by troops near the Morag corridor, who were awaiting trucks entering Gaza through an Israeli border crossing, it says.
Three Palestinian eyewitnesses, seeking food in Teina and Morag, tell The Associated Press the shootings occurred on the route to the distribution points, which are in military zones secured by Israeli forces. They say they saw soldiers open fire on hungry crowds advancing toward the troops.
Further north in central Gaza, hospital officials describe a similar episode, with Israeli troops opening fire in the morning toward crowds of Palestinians trying to reach GHF’s fourth and northernmost distribution point.
“Troops were trying to prevent people from advancing. They opened fire and we fled. Some people were shot,” says Hamza Matter, one of the aid seekers.
At least five people were killed and 27 wounded at GHF’s site near Netzarim corridor, Awda Hospital says.
The figures cannot be independently verified, and do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
The IDF has in the past said troops have fired toward crowds of Palestinians approaching their positions near aid sites, but it claims casualty figures are exaggerated, without providing its own.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.