IDF opens inquiry into possible war crimes after deaths near Gaza aid sites
Israel
Defense Forces to examine growing evidence of shootings of Palestinians trying
to obtain food
Jason Burke
and Malak A Tantesh in Gaza
Fri 27 Jun
2025 17.38 BST
The Israeli
military has launched an investigation into possible war crimes following
growing evidence that troops have deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians
gathering to receive aid in Gaza.
Hundreds of
people have been killed in recent weeks after being subjected to air attacks,
shootings and bombardments by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while waiting for
food to be distributed or while making their way to distribution sites.
On Friday
the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted unnamed Israeli soldiers as saying they
had been told to fire at crowds near food distribution sites to keep them away
from Israeli military positions. The soldiers said they had concerns about
using unnecessary lethal force against people who appeared to pose no threat.
Haaretz also
quoted unnamed sources as saying that the army unit established to review
incidents that may involve breaches of international law had been tasked with
examining soldiers’ actions near distribution locations over the past month.
In a
statement reported by Israeli media, the IDF rejected the accusations, saying
that no forces had been ordered “to deliberately shoot at civilians, including
those approaching the distribution centers”.
“To be
clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the IDF said.
In a joint
statement issued late on Friday, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister,
and Israel Katz, the defence minister, accused Haaretz of “malicious falsehoods
designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world”.
Food has
become extremely scarce in Gaza since a tight blockade on all supplies was
imposed by Israel throughout March and April, threatening many of the 2.3
million people who live there with famine.
Since the
blockade was partly lifted last month, the UN has tried to bring in aid but has
faced major obstacles, including rubble-choked roads, Israeli military
restrictions, continuing airstrikes and growing anarchy. Hundreds of trucks
have been looted by armed gangs and by crowds of desperate Palestinians.
On Thursday,
18 people were killed in an Israeli strike targeting Palestinian police
distributing flour in a market in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah,
medical officials said.
The strike
appears to have targeted members of a security force set up by the Hamas-led
interior ministry to target looters and merchants who sell stolen aid at high
prices.
The unit,
known as Sahm, or Arrow, confiscates stolen aid which it then distributes.
Witnesses said many of the casualties were ordinary civilians who had gathered
to receive sacks of flour from a warehouse near the Baraka crossroads in the
northern part of Deir al-Balah.
The dead
included a child and at least seven Sahm members, according to the nearby
al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where casualties were taken. There was no immediate
comment on the attack from the Israeli military.
Razeq Abu
Mandil, a paramedic from the al-Maghazi refugee camp, said: “Among the injured
were men, women, and children. In my ambulance, there was a woman and her
daughter – both wounded.
“When we
arrived, there were people torn to pieces – severely wounded and dead … We
started transporting the injured and the dead to the hospital, then returned
again to load the ambulances. I repeated this three or four times. The
situation in the hospital was catastrophic.”
“I was far
from the point of impact but some shrapnel injured my leg. I looked around and
saw people lying on the ground – torn bodies, wounded individuals, blood and
its smell filling the air, cries and screams,” he said.
The strike
came shortly after Israel closed crossings into northern Gaza, cutting the most
direct route for aid to the parts of the territory where the humanitarian
crisis is most acute.
For most of
the war, aid in Gaza was distributed mainly by the UN and other international
humanitarian organisations, but Israel said Hamas diverted and sold supplies to
finance its military and other operations.
The UN and
other aid groups deny the charge and say their monitoring of their distribution
networks is robust.
Israel has
backed an American private contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF),
which started distributing food boxes in Gaza last month from four hubs.
To reach the
GHF sites, which open intermittently and unpredictably and often at night,
Palestinians must cross rubble-strewn roads and Israeli military zones where
witnesses say troops often fire on them with mortars, tanks and machine guns.
A senior aid
official in Gaza said many of the shootings occurred in darkness when civilians
gathered near Israeli troops to wait for distribution sites to open or to
receive aid looted from trucks.
“The
soldiers fire to keep them away, or because they don’t know who is there, or
because they don’t care, or all three,” the official said.
Medical
records from independent NGOs working in Gaza, seen by the Guardian, confirm
hundreds of lethal injuries from bullets and some from shelling.
The IDF
insists its internal processes are robust but critics say few investigations
are thoroughly pursued and only a tiny fraction result in any sanction.
Israel has
continued to allow a smaller number of aid trucks into Gaza for distribution by
the UN and other organisations, with about 70 entering the territory each day
on Monday and Tuesday. On Thursday, Israel shut entry points used to access
directly the north of the territory, where the need for aid is greatest.
António
Guterres, the UN secretary general, said on Friday that the US-backed aid
operation in Gaza is “inherently unsafe”, giving a blunt assessment: “It is
killing people.”
“People are
being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families. The search
for food must never be a death sentence,” Guterres told reporters.
The war was
triggered by a Hamas attack on southern Israel in which militants killed 1,200
people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage.
The overall
death toll in Gaza in the 20-month conflict has reached 56,331 fatalities,
mostly civilians, according to local health authorities.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
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