Gaza officials say Israeli forces killed 27 heading to aid site. Israel says it fired near suspects

RAFAH Gaza Strip AP Israeli forces fired on people as they headed toward an aid distribution site in Gaza on Tuesday killing at least Palestinian wellbeing officers and bystanders disclosed in the third such shooting in three days The army mentioned it fired near a limited individual persons of interest who left the designated path approached its forces and ignored warning shots The near-daily shootings have occurred after an Israeli and U S -backed foundation established aid distribution points inside Israeli military zones a system it says is designed to circumvent Hamas The United Nations has rejected the new system saying it doesn t address Gaza s mounting hunger situation and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon The Israeli military explained it fired to drive away subjects In a comment army spokesperson Effie Defrin announced the numbers of casualties published by Hamas were exaggerated but that the development was being investigated He noted the army is not preventing Palestinians in Gaza from reaching aid in the distribution areas but rather allowing it The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation which operates the sites says there has been no violence in or around them On Tuesday it acknowledged that the Israeli military was reviewing whether civilians were wounded after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone in an area that was well beyond our secure distribution site A spokesperson for the group revealed it was saddened to learn that a number of civilians were injured and killed after moving beyond the designated safe corridor Gaza s roughly million people are almost fully reliant on international aid because Israel s offensive has destroyed nearly all of Gaza s food production capabilities Israel imposed a blockade on supplies into Gaza in March and limited aid began to enter again late last month after pressure from allies and warnings of famine Either way we will die Eyewitnesses have commented the shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout around a kilometer half-mile from one of the GHF s distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah The entire area is an Israeli military zone where journalists have no access outside of army-approved embeds Yasser Abu Lubda a -year-old displaced person from Rafah commented the shooting started around a m Tuesday and he saw several people killed or wounded Neima al-Aaraj a woman from Khan Younis revealed the Israeli fire was indiscriminate She added that when she managed to reach the distribution site there was no aid left After the martyrs and wounded I won t return she declared Either way we will die Rasha al-Nahal another witness reported that there was gunfire from all directions She explained she counted more than a dozen dead and several wounded along the road When she reached the distribution site she located there was no aid left she mentioned She gathered pasta from the ground and salvaged rice from a bag that had been dropped and trampled upon We d rather die than deal with this she revealed Death is more dignified than what s happening to us UN human rights official condemns shootings At least people were killed early Tuesday according to Gaza s Wellness Ministry Hisham Mhanna a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross authenticated the toll saying its field hospital in Rafah received wounded people of them declared dead on arrival with eight others later dying of their wounds The dead were transferred to Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis Three children and two women were among the dead according to Mohammed Saqr head of nursing at the hospital Hospital director Atef al-Hout commented most of of the patients had gunshot wounds An Associated Press reporter who arrived at the Red Cross field hospital at around a m saw wounded people being transferred to other hospitals by ambulance Outside people were returning from the aid hub mostly empty-handed while empty flour bags stained with blood lay on the ground Jeremy Laurence a spokesman for the U N human rights office communicated reporters it also had information indicating that people were killed Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices die from starvation or hazard being killed while trying to access the meager food that is being made available through Israel s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism Volker T rk the U N High Commissioner for Human Rights commented in a declaration The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation revealed it distributed truckloads of food at the Rafah site on Tuesday while its other two operational sites were closed During a ceasefire earlier this year around aid trucks entered Gaza daily Israeli soldiers killed in northern Gaza The Israeli military meanwhile stated three of its soldiers were killed in northern Gaza in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on Israel s forces since it ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March The military reported the soldiers all in their early s died during combat on Monday without providing details Israeli media published they were killed in an explosion in the Jabaliya area Israel ended the latest ceasefire after Hamas refused to change the agreement to release more hostages sooner Israeli strikes have killed thousands of Palestinians since then according to Gaza s Strength Ministry Israel says the new aid distribution system is designed to prevent Hamas from stealing aid The U N says its own ability to deliver aid across Gaza has been hindered by Israeli restrictions the breakdown of law and order and widespread looting but that there s no evidence of systematic diversion of aid by Hamas Hamas-led militants killed around people mostly civilians and took people hostage in the Oct attack into southern Israel that ignited the war They are still holding hostages a third of them assumed to be alive after largest part of the rest were circulated in ceasefire agreements or other deals Israel s military campaign has killed more than Palestinians mostly women and children according to Gaza s Wellness Ministry which doesn t say how several of the dead were civilians or combatants The ministry is led by anatomical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run cabinet Its toll is seen as generally reliable by U N agencies and independent experts though Israel has challenged its numbers Israel says it has killed around militants without providing evidence Around Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Oct attack including more than during the fighting inside Gaza Rockets fired from Syria Sirens sounded across Israel late Tuesday night Israel s army commented that two rockets were fired from Syria into open areas in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights marking the first time a strike s been launched toward Israel from Syrian territory since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad A group calling itself the Mohammed Deif Brigades claimed the attack in a post on Telegram Little is known about the group which first surfaced on social media last month Israel has been suspicious of the Islamist former insurgents who formed the new Syrian governing body and has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syria and seized a U N -patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory since Assad s fall Syrian state TV broadcasted Israeli shelling hit the western countryside of Syria s Daraa province after the rocket launch Israel s defense minister stated it holds Syria s president responsible for every threat and firing towards Israel and that a full response will come as soon as realizable