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The Israeli military has launched an investigation into possible war crimes following growing evidence that troops deliberately fired on Palestinian civilians gathering to receive aid in Gaza.
Hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shootings and shelling while waiting for food distribution or heading to distribution sites.
On Friday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted unidentified Israeli soldiers as saying they were told to fire on crowds near food distribution sites to keep them away from Israeli military positions. The soldiers said they had concerns about using unnecessary lethal force against people who appeared to pose no threat.
Haaretz also cited unidentified sources as saying that the military unit created to review incidents that may involve violations of international law was tasked with reviewing the actions of soldiers near deployment sites over the past month.
In a statement reported by Israeli media, the IDF rejected the allegations, saying that no soldiers had been ordered "to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching distribution centers."
"To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians," the IDF said.
In a joint statement issued late Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz accused the Haaretz newspaper of "malicious lies designed to defame the IDF, the most moral army in the world."
Food has become extremely scarce in Gaza since Israel imposed a strict blockade on all supplies during March and April, threatening many of the 2.3 million people living there with starvation.
Since the blockade was partially lifted last month, the UN has tried to bring in aid but has faced major obstacles, including roads blocked by rubble, Israeli military restrictions, constant airstrikes and growing anarchy. Hundreds of trucks have been looted by armed gangs and desperate Palestinian mobs.
On Thursday, 18 people were killed in an Israeli attack targeting Palestinian police distributing flour at a market in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, medical officials said.
The attack appears to have targeted members of a security force set up by the Hamas-led interior ministry to target looters and traders selling stolen aid at high prices.
The unit, known as Sahm, or Arrow, confiscates stolen aid and then distributes it. Witnesses said many of the victims were ordinary civilians who had gathered to collect sacks of flour from a warehouse near the Baraka road junction in northern Deir al-Balah.
Razeq Abu Mandil, a paramedic from the al-Maghazi refugee camp, said that "among the wounded were men, women and children. In my ambulance, there was a woman and her daughter, wounded."
"When we arrived, there were people torn to pieces, seriously injured and dead... We started transporting the injured and dead to the hospital, then we went back again to load the ambulances. I repeated this three or four times. The situation in the hospital was catastrophic," he said.
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