The Israeli army is investigating whether its troops have fired on civilians at distribution points in Gaza.

BarcelonaThe Israeli army claims to be "examining" whether its soldiers have directly and deliberately fired at civilians who were seeking food at humanitarian aid points in Gaza in the last month, as reported by the Israeli newspaper. Haaretz. Journalists from the newspaper interviewed several Israeli soldiers who acknowledged that army commanders gave orders to attack Palestinian mobs to disperse them, even though they clearly posed no threat to the troops. Orders that, according to the fighters, violate the moral code of the country's defense forces.

"It's a killing zone," one soldier told the newspaper, requesting anonymity. "Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They treat them like a hostile force: no crowd control measures, no tear gas, just bullets from everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars." The distribution points are open for between half an hour and an hour each morning, and there is not enough food for everyone. Instead of taking measures to prevent Palestinians from attacking, the military fires indiscriminately at anyone who arrives before opening time or after closing time, according to the soldiers interviewed.

The Israeli government on Friday "strongly" rejected "the vicious defamations published in the daily Haaretz," according to a joint statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, in which they described the publication's content as "vicious lies."

This is the first time that the Israeli military has admitted what human rights organizations present in the Strip have long denounced: that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's food distribution program (The system that the United States and Israel have implemented in Gaza and which works with American private military companies) is "a slaughterhouse disguised as humanitarian aid." These were the terms used by the NGO Doctors Without Borders today, in a message in which it called on the Israeli authorities to end the humanitarian siege on the enclave. According to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in the Strip, 549 people have died around aid centers while waiting for food trucks during the last month.

The Israeli newspaper's report coincides with Israel's decision to halt the entry of aid into northern Gaza, still keeping the southern route open. The government has justified the measure by saying that Hamas is seizing aid intended for civilians. On Wednesday, a video circulated online showing dozens of masked men, some armed with rifles and most with batons, traveling in aid trucks. But the Higher Commission for Tribal Affairs quickly explained that they were its men, protecting the aid trucks to deliver aid to the population. However, Israel blocked the northern aid route.

The Higher Commission for Tribal Affairs represents the influential clans in Gaza. Made up of extended families connected by blood and marriage, they have long been a fundamental part of Palestinian society in the Strip. The commission's statement asserted that the humanitarian aid trucks had been protected "solely through tribal efforts," without intervention by any Palestinian faction, a reference to Hamas. The Islamist organization itself, which has ruled Gaza for more than two decades and now only controls parts of the territory after nearly two years of war with Israel, denied any involvement, according to Reuters.

“The clans came to prevent the aggressors and thieves from stealing the food that belongs to our people,” said Abu Salman Al Moghani, a representative of the Gaza clans, referring to Wednesday’s operation. But Netanyahu, in a joint statement that same day with Defense Minister Israel Katz, said the military had been ordered to present a plan to prevent Hamas from taking control of humanitarian aid. Wednesday’s video was shared on X by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu’s most viable rival in the upcoming elections, who claimed that Hamas had seized control of the aid allowed into Gaza by the Israeli government.

The new obstacle to the entry of humanitarian aid further aggravates the situation of hunger and devastation suffered by the population of Gaza, which had been overshadowed by Israel's war against Iran. In the twelve days of this military conflict between Tel Aviv and Tehran, more than 800 Palestinians have died in Gaza., amid Israeli bombings and military attacks and gunfire fired at people coming to collect food at the aid distribution points set up by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, run by former US mercenaries with support from the Israeli army.

This entity still works in southern and central Gaza and one of its spokespersons explained to X that they are the only organization allowed to distribute aid and that they are exempt from a two-day suspension of humanitarian aid deliveries to the territory. But their distribution points have become a death trap for dozens of starving Palestinians who end up shot when they try to collect food for their families. Since the start of Israel's war on Gaza, following the Hamas attacks that left 1,200 dead and 250 kidnapped on October 7, 2023, The Israeli army has killed 56,000 Palestinians, many of whom were children.

In this context, the words of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, this Thursday in Brussels denouncing the "catastrophic situation of "Gaza genocide" has raised an uproar in Israel, accusing him of defending a "morally indefensible" position and of being "on the wrong side of history." Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Israeli settler harassment of the Palestinian population has also worsened, with 23 settler attacks on Palestinians documented by the UN, including "arsons, murders, and vandalism of olive groves," with fourteen injured.