Middle East regional editor
BBC Gaza correspondent
Thirty-one people have been killed and more than 150 injured in Israeli gunfire near an aid distribution centre in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry and medics say.
Reports said one incident occurred in the early hours of Sunday as people were queueing for aid in Rafah in the south of Gaza. Another incident was said to have happened near a separate aid centre in central Gaza, with reports of 14 injured.
The group that is providing the aid, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), has denied the claims and said they had been spread by Hamas.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said findings from an initial inquiry said its forces had not fired at Gazans while they were near or within aid points.
“In recent hours, false reports have been spread, including serious allegations against the IDF regarding fire toward Gazan residents in the area of the humanitarian aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said.
“Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false,” it added.
As of Sunday evening, the situation remained unclear with regards to reports of the incidents near aid distribution centres in Rafah and the Netzarim Corridor.
The BBC was contacted by doctors at the Nasser hospital who said they had received about 200 people with injuries caused by bullets or shrapnel.
Local journalists and activists shared footage of bodies and wounded people being transported on donkey carts to the Red Cross field hospital in the al-Mawasi area.
The BBC has examined footage of bodies being carried on carts and in the back of lorries to Nasser Hospital.
Gaza’s health ministry said more than 200 cases had arrived at hospitals, including 31 dead.
Seventy-nine of the injured were brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, according to the emergency department, medical staff from British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians reported.
Those killed and injured “were primarily struck by live gunfire, with many victims sustaining direct shots to the head or chest”, the charity’s staff said.
Victoria Rose, a British surgeon who has been working at Nasser Hospital, recorded a video mid-morning in which she motions to the beds with patients behind her and says “all the bays are full and they’re all gunshot wounds”.
The GHF, which distributes aid at these sites, denied any incident occurred near its distribution centres.
An IDF soldier in Rafah contacted the BBC to say that Israeli soldiers did fire near the crowd, but not at them, and that no-one was hit.
The IDF blamed Hamas, saying it “does everything in its power to undermine food distribution efforts in the Gaza Strip.
“Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that starves and endangers the population in order to preserve its control over the Gaza Strip. As part of its brutal behavior and its attempts to disrupt humanitarian aid, Hamas directly harms the residents of Gaza.
“The IDF calls on the media to be cautious with information published by the Hamas terrorist organization, as proven in several previous incidents.”
Mohammed Ghareeb, a journalist in Rafah, told the BBC that Palestinians had gathered near the aid centre run by the GHF when Israeli tanks approached and opened fire on the crowd.
Mr Ghareeb said the crowd of Palestinians were near Al-Alam roundabout around 04:30 local time (02:30 BST), close to the aid centre run by GHF, shortly before Israeli tanks appeared and opened fire.
“The dead and wounded lay on the ground for a long time,” he said.
“Rescue crews could not access the area, which is under Israeli control. This forced residents to use donkey carts to transport victims to the field hospital.”
Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s main emergency service the Civil Defence, told AFP news agency that more than 100 people were wounded “due to gunfire from Israeli vehicles towards thousands of citizens”.
The incidents underscore the dire humanitarian conditions in Rafah, where recent Israeli military operations have severely limited access to aid and emergency services.
On Saturday, crowds of civilians rushed aid trucks into Gaza, the World Food Programme said, as hunger and desperation created chaotic scenes.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a new US and Israeli-backed organisation that has been distributing food at designated sites across Gaza. Israel set up the plan after accusing Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.
The GHF said it had distributed 4.7 million meals this week, which the BBC has not been able to independently verify.
Israel does not allow independent access to Gaza, making it difficult to verify facts on the ground.
It comes as the US attempts to broker a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Hamas responded to the US ceasefire proposal on Saturday by saying it is prepared to release 10 living Israeli hostages and 18 dead hostages in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners.
However, the group also repeated its demands for a permanent truce, a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and guarantees for the continuous flow of humanitarian aid. None of these are in the deal on the table.
Hamas said it had submitted its response to the US draft proposed by Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East.
Witkoff said the proposal was “unacceptable and only takes us backward” and insisted the US deal was “the only way we can close a 60-day ceasefire deal in the coming days.”
A military campaign was launched by Israel in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
At least 54,418 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the territory’s health ministry.
