UN says attacks around Gaza aid distribution site may constitute war crime

GENEVA, Switzerland — The United Nations human rights office says the impediment of access to food and relief for civilians in Gaza may constitute a war crime, describing attacks on civilians trying to access food aid as unconscionable.

“For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This morning, we have received information that dozens more people were killed and injured,” the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Jeremy Laurence tells reporters in Geneva.

The military earlier said that it fired on Palestinian suspects who approached them around 500 meters (550 yards) from a humanitarian aid distribution site in the Rafah area of southern Gaza.

The GHF said that aid was distributed earlier this morning at the site itself without incident.