The night towards Sunday, thousands of desperate people moved along Rasheed Road in southern Gaza. After eleven weeks of Israeli blockade, they hoped to be among the first to reach the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution site when it opened at 05. The rations were few and the Israeli military had been clear: first come, first served.
At 3:30, the first shots were heard, according to about ten witnesses who CNN has spoken to.
In front of me, there were four young men with head injuries. Next to me, there was a person who had been shot in the eye, says 43-year-old Mohammed Saqer to the media company.
A loudspeaker mounted on a drone urged the crowd to turn back, according to Saqer. At the same time, the bullets continued to whine. The shots were heard for several hours in at least two places near the aid center, according to CNN's investigation.
Israeli machine guns
In addition to talking to witnesses, CNN has reviewed a large amount of images and video clips from the incident. In one clip, filmed by 30-year-old Ameen Khalifa about 800 meters from the place where Mohammed Saqer was shot, groups of Palestinians are seen lying flat on the ground in an attempt to protect themselves from bursts of automatic fire.
CNN has had sound forensic expert Robert Maher at Montana State University analyze the bursts of fire.
Because the bangs are irregular, it seems that the shots were sprayed over the entire area, he says.
Trevor Ball, former ammunition handler for the US Army, states that the speed of the shots indicates machine guns of the type FN Mag, usually mounted on Israeli tanks, the Merkava. Several of the witnesses who CNN has spoken to say they saw tanks opening fire on the crowds.
The sound does not match, according to Ball, the type of machine gun used by Hamas. Images of bullets picked up from the wounded after the attack also match Israeli weapons, he says.
Israel denies
CNN-analyzed video material filmed after dawn shows lifeless bodies scattered in the sand. According to health authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza, 31 people were killed and another 175 were injured. All the dead had been shot in the head or chest. The International Red Cross Committee confirms that its nearby field hospital was flooded with gunshot wounds early on Sunday.
Also on Tuesday, nearly 30 Palestinians were killed on their way to GHF's distribution sites in Rafah, according to Palestinian healthcare and authority data.
GHF and the Israeli military deny Sunday's bloodbath, but say that Israeli forces were active in the area at the time.
Regarding the incident on Sunday - it simply did not happen, said the military's spokesperson Effie Defrin on Tuesday.
The military admits, however, that "warning shots" against "suspected individuals" were fired at the aid centers for three days in a row.
Mia Holmberg Karlsson/TT
Facts: Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
TT
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is an organization that the US, with the support of Israel, launched at the beginning of May.
The idea is that it will handle all distribution of food, medicine, and other aid to war-torn Gaza, where almost the entire population is at risk of starvation due to Israel's previous total blockade of emergency aid for two months.
The US excludes the UN and other established organizations, with the explanation that previous aid routes have led to Hamas and other terrorist-classified groups being able to seize them. According to the UN, GHF's activities can therefore not possibly live up to humanitarian principles.
The foundation's CEO, Jake Wood, left his post shortly after the start, citing that the work could not be carried out according to humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. The new CEO is the American pastor Johnnie Moore, who has dismissed reports of deaths at distribution sites as "fictional massacres".
