Dozens of Palestinians have been killed near aid distribution compounds in recent days, prompting renewed criticism of the controversial new Israeli-backed aid system for the Gaza Strip.
Only one of the four compounds has opened every day since 27 May, when the new system was launched.
It lies in the far south-west of the Gaza Strip, near the ruins of a town known as Swedish Village.
In just eight days, at least 64 people have been killed while seeking aid at the Swedish Village compound, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Until recently, aid into Gaza was managed by the United Nations, which would distribute food and medicine from hundreds of points around the territory.
Israel says this aid was being routinely diverted towards Hamas, though it has not provided evidence of this.
Under the new system implemented by Israel and the new US-based organisation Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, aid is supposed to be distributed from four militarised compounds – three of which are in the far south of the Gaza Strip.
The project has been criticised by the UN and the charity sector, who say it puts Palestinians at risk and forces them to travel many miles to receive aid.
That includes 27 who were reportedly killed on Tuesday morning, according to local officials and the nearby Red Cross field hospital.
The IDF said its forces had opened fire on “individual suspects who advanced towards troops” after “deviating from the designated access routes” near the distribution centre, and said it was looking into reports of casualties.
“Warning shots were fired approximately half a kilometre away from the humanitarian aid distribution site toward several suspects who advanced toward the troops in such a way that posed a threat to them,” a spokesperson said.
“After the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects who advanced towards the troops.”
The shootings happened at the al Alam roundabout, around 1km from the aid compound, and began at around 4am, according to witnesses.
In the footage below, verified by Sky News, gunfire can be heard as hundreds of Palestinians walk southwards towards the aid compound.
The attack on Tuesday was the fourth to take place at al Alam roundabout, and the third in three days.
Two days earlier, on 1 June, at least 31 people were reportedly killed. Sky News has verified footage, too graphic to publish, that shows eight bodies scattered on the beach near al Alam.
Eye-witness testimonies suggest a similar cause – that some Palestinians strayed from the indicated route, or advanced towards the compound too early, and were shot by the IDF.
“I didn’t expect to see such a large number of people in the distribution area,” wrote one man in a social media post.
“Tanks were firing at the ground […] to try to scare people and prevent them from approaching al Alam, but people did not listen to it and began to move forward.”
The IDF says its troops did not fire at civilians near or within the aid compound, and has said reports to the contrary are false.
Later that day, the GHF released undated footage which it said showed that aid was distributed at the site without incident.
Sky News was not able to verify the footage, which had been edited, but it showed the inside of an aid compound rather than the roundabout area where the shooting is alleged to have taken place.
The Israeli military later published footage which it said showed gunmen shooting at people collecting aid.
On Tuesday, Israeli deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel said this footage “shows some of Hamas’s tactics to actually try and prevent Gazan civilians from coming and collecting aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Fund collection centres and humanitarian distribution points”.
However, Sky News has confirmed the footage was taken in a Khan Younis neighbourhood far from any GHF distribution compound.
Why is the new aid system so dangerous?
Sky News has analysed video from the area, heard eye-witness testimony, combed social media and spoken to Gaza aid experts to understand what has been happening.
In an official GHF WhatsApp channel on Tuesday morning, Palestinians complained about the rush to secure packages inside the distribution centre and the failure of the guards to maintain order.
“Literally, in less than five minutes it was finished,” said one user who attended the Swedish Village site that morning.
“I went there four times and did not receive anything,” said another. “I entered at the appointed time and found people upset, having gone in two hours early. God knows how.”
Sam Rose, acting director of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in Gaza, told Sky News the lack of order at the distribution sites means Palestinians have little incentive to obey the rules if that means they will be pushed to the back of the queue.
“People are just grabbing whatever food parcels they can get their hands on,” he says.
When UNRWA was in charge of distributing aid, Rose says, “we would do orderly distributions where a certain number of people are called and invited to receive their food every day at hundreds of distribution points”.
“When they receive that food, they were counted off, and those details were then shared with other food providers to ensure that food is distributed as equitably and as comprehensively as possible,” he says.
“We’re seeing nothing of that. We’re basically just seeing riots.”
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Instructions have been chaotic and contradictory
Sky News analysis suggests that issues with aid distribution are being compounded by poor communication from the group organising the sites, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The group’s website has no information about opening times or where to find this information.
A Facebook page under the GHF’s name, marked as “verified” by Meta, appears to be the only official channel for updates.
It has just 3.8 thousand followers, with its posts regularly receiving fewer than 50 engagements.
Even those closely following the page to learn when and where to find aid rarely receive more than an hour’s notice.
On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday this week, the opening of the Swedish Village site was announced after 4am, with the site due to open at 5am.
The instructions given to Palestinians are also confusing and contradictory.
In the post on Tuesday morning, for instance, the GHF instructed Palestinians that they were not allowed to proceed south past the al Alam roundabout until 5am.
The accompanying map indicated the point at which Palestinians were to stop, along with coordinates. However, this was not the al Alam roundabout, but a junction 740 metres earlier.
It is not clear whether the IDF expected Palestinians to stop at the roundabout or at the indicated location.
Eyewitnesses later reported that the IDF shot and killed 27 Palestinians near the roundabout. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said that those killed were shot “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor”.
The new system has only provided 13% of the necessary meals
Problems with crowds at the new aid distribution centres began on the first day they came into operation.
On 27 May, the Swedish Village aid compound was overwhelmed by a crowd of Palestinians seeking aid.
The crowd, which had been contained inside a fenced entrance area, was able to easily topple the fences and scale the sand berms which surround the compound.
Analysis of footage from that day shows that the fences do not appear to be fixed to concrete foundations, making them relatively flimsy.
“As long as two million people try to come every day, there will definitely be massacres,” said one user in the GHF WhatsApp group.
“Of course, the reason is due to the idea that there is only one point for receiving – other points must be opened.”
The UN estimates that half of Gaza’s 2.1 million people live in the north of the territory, yet the GHF has not set up any aid distribution sites in this region.
It has three sites in the far south of the Gaza Strip, and one in the central region. The latter has only opened once so far, for a single day.
UNRWA’s Sam Rose says this set-up makes it “inevitable” that “thousands upon thousands” of people would seek aid at the Swedish Village compound, which has been the only open compound in recent days.
“[The GHF] are simply not able to cope with the crowds, with the complete desperation of people who have absolutely no choice, if they want to get food for themselves and their family, but to go through this,” he says.
“Wave upon wave of people are seeking the only means to get food, and this is the inevitable consequence of it.
“No entity with any clue about distribution of aid would have proposed such an inhumane system.”
This issue is compounded by the limited quantities of food available.
Even by its numbers, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is feeding only a fraction of Gaza’s population.
On Monday, the organisation said it had distributed 5.9 million meals during its first week in operation, or an average of 840,000 per day.
The organisation has previously said three meals are enough to feed one person per day, meaning over the past week, it has distributed enough meals to feed just 13% of Gaza’s population.
“It seems that the group’s goal is to make us look like a barbaric people,” said one Palestinian in the GHF WhatsApp.
“If there was a system, everyone would get what they want, and things would be fine.”
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
