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Israeli tank and gunfire was heard Tuesday while large crowds of Palestinians tried to reach a newly opened aid distribution centre in southern Gaza, according to reports from CBC and AP journalists.
3 Palestinians injured in aid efforts as new Gaza aid group says 8,000 food boxes distributed so farThe Associated Press
· Posted: May 27, 2025 12:18 PM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hour ago
A young Palestinian boy carries a bottled drink as others in Gaza seeking aid gather Tuesday near an aid distribution site run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), in Rafah. (Hatem Khaled/Reuters)Israeli tank and gunfire was heard Tuesday while giant crowds of Palestinians tried to reach a newly opened aid distribution centre in southern Gaza, according to reports from CBC News and The Associated Press journalists.
Witnesses said chaos erupted as desperate people broke through fences at the centre, forcing staff to retreat.
“All the people who went did so to eat and feed their children,” Jihad Khader told freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife from the scene. “People went to risk their lives to feed their children.”
The Israeli military said its troops fired the warning shots in the area outside the centre and that “control over the situation was established.”
At least three injured Palestinians were seen by the AP being brought from the scene, one of them bleeding from his leg.
The turmoil came on the second day of operations by a U.S.-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which Israel has slated to take over food distribution in Gaza, despite opposition from the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations.
Muhammad Afana, 36, says he and hundreds of other Palestinians were made to stand in four rows, before being searched and marched in groups of 10 to a table to retrieve their box of aid.
He spread the contents of the box on the ground for El Saife to see, a few bags of flour, some sugar, tea, pasta, beans, canned tuna and a box of cookies.
“I would go to danger to feed my kids,” he said. “They will be happy when they see the cookies.”
Palestinians have become desperate for food after nearly three months of Israeli blockade, which has pushed Gaza to the brink of famine according to the World Health Organization. On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children walked for several miles, through Israeli military lines, to reach the GHF distribution hub set up on the outskirts of Rafah.
Hundreds could be seen wheeling boxes of aid out of the scene on their backs, or on bikes or strollers, recounting the chaos they witnessed in order to get some food.
A person gestures while he carrying a box as Palestinians gather near an aid distribution site run by the GHF, in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah Tuesday. (Hatem Khaled/Reuters)In the afternoon, the AP journalist, positioned some distance from the hub, heard tank and gun fire and saw a military helicopter firing flares. Smoke could be seen rising from where one round impacted. Afterwards, crowds were seen returning from the site, almost all of them without having received aid.
CBC News freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife, who was at the scene, said gunshots were fired into the air and the water but did not appear to injure anyone.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Ahmed Abu Taha, who was among those seeking aid, said crowds of people stormed into the distribution centre, breaking fences. He heard gunfire and saw Israeli military aircraft overhead, “It was chaos,” he said. “People were panicked.”
Another Palestinian, Saleh Abu Najjar, said he heard a tank firing from a distance, east of the centre. “The situation was very dangerous and people were frightened,” he said.
8,000 food boxes handed out so far: GHFIn a statement, GHF said that because of the large number of Palestinians seeking aid, staff at the hub followed the group’s safety protocols and “fell back” to allow them to dissipate, then later resumed operations.
“What happened today is conclusive evidence of the occupation’s failure to manage the humanitarian crisis it deliberately created through a policy of starvation, siege, and bombing,” the Hamas-run government media office said in a statement.
Palestinians seeking aid gather in droves Tuesday near an aid distribution site run by GHF in Rafah. (Hatem Khaled/Reuters)GHF uses armed private contractors to guard the hubs and the transportation of supplies. The hub is also close to Israeli military positions in the Morag Corridor, a band of territory across the breadth of Gaza that divides Rafah from the rest of the territory.
GHF has set up four hubs around Gaza to distribute food, two of which began operating on Monday — both of them in the Rafah area. UN officials and aid workers have warned of the risk of frictions between Israeli troops and crowds of people seeking aid at the hubs.
By late afternoon on Tuesday, the GHF said it had distributed about 8,000 food boxes, equivalent to about 462,000 meals.
Some of the recipients showed the content of the packages, which included some rice, flour, canned beans, pasta, olive oil, biscuits and sugar.
Although the aid was available on Monday, Palestinians appeared to have heeded warnings, including from Hamas, about biometric screening procedures employed at the foundation’s aid distribution sites.
“As much as I want to go because I am hungry and my children are hungry, I am afraid,” said Abu Ahmed, 55, a father of seven.
“I am so scared because they said the company belongs to Israel and is a mercenary, and also because the resistance [Hamas] said not to go,” he said in a message on the chat app WhatsApp.
With files from CBC’s Mohamed El Saife, Sara Jabakhanji and Reuters
