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Allegations of live fire at Gaza aid hubs trigger Israeli probe

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Palestinians carry the bodies of people killed during overnight Israeli strikes, at Al-Shifa hospital in the central Gaza Strip on June 28, 2025. /AFP
Palestinians carry the bodies of people killed during overnight Israeli strikes, at Al-Shifa hospital in the central Gaza Strip on June 28, 2025. /AFP

Palestinians carry the bodies of people killed during overnight Israeli strikes, at Al-Shifa hospital in the central Gaza Strip on June 28, 2025. /AFP

Israel's Military Advocate General has opened an internal probe after the country's oldest newspaper Haaretz published soldiers' testimonies alleging they were ordered to fire on Palestinians crowding around food distribution hubs in the Gaza Strip. 

Commanders allegedly authorized live fire "to clear the approaches", even when the crowds were unarmed and posed no immediate threat. Soldiers told the paper the orders came from brigade level and were repeated in at least 19 separate incidents over the past month.   

The UN reports that at least 410 people have been killed while trying to reach the four Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites since late May - a figure rebutted by the GHF's executive director as "disinformation" in an interview with Sky News.

The wider war has now killed more than 56,000 Palestinians and 1,706 Israelis - figures broadly corroborated by independent tallies compiled by Reuters and the UN humanitarian office.   

Palestinian children play in a huge crater after the Israeli army targeted the tents of displaced people in the northern Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on June 28, 2025, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas militant group. /AFP
Palestinian children play in a huge crater after the Israeli army targeted the tents of displaced people in the northern Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on June 28, 2025, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas militant group. /AFP

Palestinian children play in a huge crater after the Israeli army targeted the tents of displaced people in the northern Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on June 28, 2025, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas militant group. /AFP

Israel's response

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz dismissed the Haaretz investigation as "blood libel" and "malicious falsehoods that defame the IDF," while an army communique insisted that "directives prohibit deliberate fire on civilians" and promised prosecution for any soldier who violated them.

Overnight airstrikes

Even as the inquiry opened, Israeli jets and artillery hit half-a-dozen sites from Friday night into Saturday, killing at least 49 people, according to hospital staff quoted by the Associated Press. 

Twelve of the dead were sleeping in tents pitched inside Gaza City's Palestine Stadium; another six were in makeshift shelters at al-Mawasi, an area Israel had previously declared a "safe zone".

Ceasefire hopes

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters he believes a Gaza cease-fire "could be reached within the next week." 

Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer is due in Washington on Monday for talks expected to cover both a cease-fire and the allegations of troops firing on aid seekers. 

Yet any concession to war-crimes claims threatens Netanyahu's ruling coalition, which depends on hard-right parties that adamantly oppose halting military operations or limiting rules of engagement.

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 7, 2025. /AFP
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 7, 2025. /AFP

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 7, 2025. /AFP

'One step from famine'

The UN human rights office said on Tuesday that the "weaponization" of food for civilians in Gaza constitutes a war crime, while their latest hunger "hot-spots" report warns that all 2.3 million Gazans face crisis-level food insecurity, with famine "imminent" in the north if access does not improve. 

The World Food Programme says malnutrition rates among children under five have doubled since March.

Aid agencies blame Israeli access restrictions on aid and now the mounting danger of being shot at distribution points - operated by Israel: "If people arrive early and approach the checkpoints, they get shot…if they arrive late, they shouldn't be there because it is an 'evacuated zone,' so they get shot," Médecins Sans Frontières's Gaza Emergency Coordinator Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa said.

With the probe now underway, The Military Advocate General's team is now collecting operational logs, drone footage and radio recordings. 

If it finds a "reasonable suspicion" of unlawful lethal force, the case will be escalated to the IDF Criminal Investigations Division and could ultimately be referred to Israel's civilian courts.

Source(s): AFP
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