DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinian aid-seekers traveling Sunday through a military zone south of Gaza City that is regularly used to reach a food distribution point, a hospital and witnesses said.
Gaza City is in famine after 22 months of war, while Israel’s military moves ahead with a planned offensive to seize the city, perhaps within days. Israel’s defense minister has warned that the city of hundreds of thousands of people could be destroyed.
Al-Awda Hospital and two witnesses told The Associated Press the Palestinians were killed when troops opened fire on a crowd heading to a site run by the Israeli-backed U.S. contractor Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the Netzarim corridor area, hundreds of meters (yards) from the site.
“The gunfire was indiscriminate,” said Mohamed Abed, a father of two from the Bureij refugee camp.
Abed and Aymed Sayyad, another aid-seeker, said troops opened fire when a group near the front of the crowd pushed toward the site before its scheduled opening. Sayyad said he and others helped two people wounded by gunshots.
