Gaza warehouse broken into by 'hordes of hungry people', says WFP | BBC News

The UN's World Food Programme says that hordes of hungry people have broken into a food supply warehouse in central Gaza.

Videos show chaotic scenes of people taking the supplies as shots were fired.

The WFP says at least four people died in the incident and several were injured.

The organisation has called for an immediate scaling up of food aid, saying humanitarian needs in Gaza have spiralled out of control.

It comes a day after a depot in Rafah, run by the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, was overrun by Palestinians desperate for food.

The UN says nearly 50 people were injured, many apparently shot by Israeli troops who opened fire in an attempt to disperse the crowd.

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says one person was killed.

Israel denies its troops were involved in the reported shooting.

Fresh deal to end the war, temporarily or permanently, has so far been elusive.

But on Wednesday, President Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, expressed optimism about the prospects for a ceasefire.

I think that we are on the precipice of sending out a new term sheet that hopefully will be delivered later on today.

The President is going to review it.

And I have some very good feelings about getting to a long-term resolution, temporary ceasefire, and a long-term resolution, a peaceful resolution of that conflict.

Our Middle East correspondent, Yolande Nell, explained more about attempts to deliver humanitarian aid inside Gaza.

Well, you now have these two avenues for very limited amounts of food getting into Gaza.

There are the UN agencies, which Israel allowed to restart some of their work last week after an 11-week total blockade, stopping all supplies going into Gaza.

And there's this newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that's backed by the US and Israel, with Israel saying at the moment it will allow

both of these channels to continue but still very minimal supplies reaching people and you just see that desperation in this footage with and it seems like thousands of people crammed into this large warehouse the World Food Program said this was

its warehouse that was renting it out filled with its supplies.

And, you know, you see people making off what appear to be bags of flour, other boxes.

And then there's some other video that shows people fleeing, scattering because you can hear gunfire.

And it's not clear at the moment whether it was Hamas trying to reassert control

whether it was security guards belonging or working for the owner of this warehouse or whether it was even armed gangs who have been carrying out more orchestrated looting and that's been a continuing problem in Gaza.

So the World Food Programme says it's investigating that.

But in the meantime, like other UN agencies, it's calling for a lifting of many of the restrictions, some of them new restrictions that they say are being imposed by Israel.

At the same time, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is trying to

come back against some of the criticism there's been of it.

Of course, the UN rejects this new mechanism, saying it goes against humanitarian principles, but it's concentrated in the south of the Gaza Strip.

This new site, which will open for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation today, we're told, will be much closer to the center.

It has already two sites, it says, operating, calling them secure distribution sites, where it has armed U.S.

security contractors working with it as food boxes are given out there in Rafa in the very south of the Gaza Strip.

In the last hour, the far-right Israeli minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has announced 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank.

A statement from the defence ministry described the cabinet vote as a historic decision.

The UN's top court ruled last year that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is against international law and that all settlement activity is illegal.

Israel argues that settlements are necessary for security.