27 reportedly killed in third day of violence near Gaza food distribution centers

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At least 27 Palestinians were fatally shot and 161 others wounded on Tuesday as they tried to reach a food distribution center in Gaza run by a controversial U.S.-backed group, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. It was the third day of deadly violence reported near a humanitarian hub run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private organization accused by the United Nations of weaponizing aid.

"We were shocked by the numbers of injuries. A horrific number," one ambulance driver said as the wounded were rushed to the Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. "All the injuries were directly to the head and chest. Many of them young people who went to get aid from the American foundation."

Little information has been made public about GHF's operations. CBS News has been told by one source that it has employed at least 300 American contractors, all heavily armed, who have been given "as much ammunition as they can carry."

Aftermath of what the Gaza health ministry say was Israeli fire near a distribution site in Rafah

GHF said Tuesday that its operations continued without disruption at its four hubs in Gaza, though it acknowledged reports of violence, which it said took place, "well beyond our secure distribution site and operations area."

In a statement, the Israeli military, which has taken control of an increasing portion of Gaza in recent weeks, said its troops had fired warning shots near the aid hub on Tuesday morning, and that it was aware of reports of casualties and was looking into them.

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"During the movement of the crowd along the designated routes toward the aid distribution site — approximately half a kilometer [0.3 miles] from the site — IDF troops identified several suspects moving toward them, deviating from the designated access routes," the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. "The troops carried out warning fire, and after the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects who advanced toward the troops."

The IDF said it "allows the American Civil Organization (GHF) to operate independently in order to enable the distribution of aid to the Gazan residents — and not to Hamas. IDF troops are not preventing the arrival of Gazan civilians to the humanitarian aid distribution sites."

GHF said in a statement on Tuesday that it had distributed a total of more than 7 million meals since it started operations about a week ago, and that "aid distribution was conducted safely and without incident at our site today."

"We understand that IDF is investigating whether a number of civilians were injured after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone. This was an area well beyond our secure distribution site and operations area. We recognize the difficult nature of the situation and advise all civilians to remain in the safe corridor when traveling to our distribution sites."

Among those killed this week was Reem Akhras, a mother of eight who was shot on her way to retrieve an aid parcel from a GHF hub, her family said. A CBS News team in Gaza attended her funeral Tuesday morning.

"You went to get us food, Mom," Akhras' young daughter cried, sobbing over her body. "We will never forgive them, Mom. Not in this life or the next."

Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, called the situation in Gaza "unconscionable" and demanded a "prompt and impartial investigation" into the deaths around the GHF hubs.

"Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel's militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism," Türk said in a statement Tuesday. "This militarized system endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution, as the United Nations has repeatedly warned."

"The wilful impediment of access to food and other life-sustaining relief supplies for civilians may constitute a war crime," Türk said. "The threat of starvation, together with 20 months of killing of civilians and destruction on a massive scale, repeated forced displacements, intolerable, dehumanizing rhetoric and threats by Israel's leadership to empty the Strip of its population, also constitute elements of the most serious crimes under international law."

Imtiaz Tyab contributed to this report.