Displaced Palestinians carry parcels as they return from an aid distribution center in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday — AFP GAZA CITY, May 28 (AFP): The UN on Wednesday condemned a US-backed aid system in Gaza after 47 people were injured during a chaotic food distribution, where the Israeli military said it did not open fire at crowds.
The issue of aid has come sharply into focus amid a hunger crisis coupled with intense criticism of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a shadowy group that has bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in the territory.
According to the UN, 47 people were injured in the mayhem that erupted on Tuesday when thousands of Palestinians desperate for food rushed into a GHF aid distribution site, while a Palestinian medical source said at least one had died.
Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories, said most of the wounded had been hurt by gunfire.
Based on the information he had, "it was shooting from the IDF"-the Israeli military.
EU says Israeli strikes
in Gaza 'go beyond
what is necessary'
to fight Hamas
The EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, has said that "Israeli strikes in Gaza go beyond what is necessary to fight Hamas" as the death toll there continues to mount.
Kallas also said that the EU did not support a new aid distribution model backed by the US and Israel which bypasses the UN and other humanitarian organisations.
"We don't support the privatisation of the distribution of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian aid can not be weaponised", she said.
Israeli air strikes and other military actions since it resumed the war in March following a ceasefire have killed 3,924 people, the Hamas-run health ministry says. Israel says it is acting to destroy Hamas and get back hostages the group holds.
16 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza
Gaza rescuers said sixteen people were killed Wednesday in Israeli strikes across the besieged Palestinian territory where Israel intensified its operations this month.
"Sixteen people have been killed as a result of Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip since dawn", civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
Among them, nine belonged to the family of photojournalist Osama al-Arbeed and were killed in a strike on their home in Gaza's north at 2am, Bassal said.
He added that Arbeed was injured, noting that he is a videographer and editor at a local film production organisation.
Another six members of the same family were killed in central Gaza in a strike that left 15 people wounded, "including children".
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