DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hospitals in Gaza reported the killing of more than a dozen people, eight of them food-seekers, by Israeli fire on Saturday as Palestinians endured severe risks searching for food amid airdrops and restrictions on overland aid delivery.
Near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site, Yahia Youssef, who had come to seek aid Saturday morning, described a panicked scene now grimly familiar. After helping carry out three people wounded by gunshots, he said he looked around and saw others lying on the ground bleeding.
“It’s the same daily episode,” Youssef said.
In response to questions about several eyewitness accounts of violence at the northernmost of the Israeli-backed American contractor’s four facilities, GHF said “nothing (happened) at or near our sites.”
The episode came a day after U.S. officials visited one site and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called the distribution “an incredible feat.” International outrage has mounted as the group’s efforts to deliver aid to hunger-stricken Gaza have been marred by violence and controversy.
