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

Palestinians mourn over the body of Reem Al-Akhras who was killed while heading to a Gaza aid hub during her funeral at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis southern Gaza Strip Tuesday June AP Photo Abdel Kareem Hana AP Abdel Kareem Hana Palestinians mourn over the body of Reem Al-Akhras who was killed while heading to a Gaza aid hub during her funeral at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis southern Gaza Strip Tuesday June AP Photo Abdel Kareem Hana AP Abdel Kareem Hana 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 fitness administrators and bystanders explained in the third such shooting in three days The army noted it fired near a insufficient individual defendants who left the designated course 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 problem and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon The Israeli military mentioned it fired to drive away individuals In a declaration army spokesperson Effie Defrin stated the numbers of casualties published by Hamas were exaggerated but that the circumstance was being investigated He disclosed 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 commented 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 Onlookers have noted 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 reported the shooting started around a m Tuesday and he saw several people killed or wounded Neima al-Aaraj a woman from Khan Younis disclosed 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 mentioned Either way we will die Rasha al-Nahal another witness mentioned that there was gunfire from all directions She revealed she counted more than a dozen dead and several wounded along the road When she reached the distribution site she uncovered there was no aid left she explained 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 commented 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 Fitness Ministry Hisham Mhanna a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross verified 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 disclosed the majority 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 explained reporters it also had information indicating that people were killed Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices die from starvation or vulnerability 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 disclosed in a comment The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation commented 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 reported 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 disclosed the soldiers all in their early s died during combat on Monday without providing details Israeli media announced 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 Wellbeing 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 inferred to be alive after majority of of the rest were disclosed in ceasefire agreements or other deals Israel s military campaign has killed more than Palestinians mostly women and children according to Gaza s Robustness Ministry which doesn t say how multiple of the dead were civilians or combatants The ministry is led by curative professionals but reports to the Hamas-run executive 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 announced 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 regime 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 shared Israeli shelling hit the western countryside of Syria s Daraa province after the rocket launch Israel s defense minister disclosed it holds Syria s president responsible for every threat and firing towards Israel and that a full response will come as soon as feasible Magdy and Khaled shared from Cairo Julia Frankel and Areej Hazboun in Jerusalem Natalie Melzer in Nahariya Israel and Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Abby Sewell in Damascus Syria contributed to this document Follow AP s war coverage at https apnews com hub israel-hamas-war Source