Guard at US-backed Gaza aid centres says colleagues fired on hungry Palestinian civilians | BBC News

A former security contractor for Gaza's controversial new Israel‑ and US‑backed aid distribution sites told the BBC he witnessed colleagues opening fire with machine guns on hungry Palestinian civilians who posed no threat. In one incident he saw a man in the crowd fall motionless to the ground while a guard laughed about it. In another, a guard opened fire from a watchtower with a machine gun because a group of women, children and elderly people was moving too slowly away from the site. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said the allegations were false and that no civilians ever came under fire at its distribution sites. The GHF began operations in Gaza at the end of May, distributing limited aid from several sites in southern and central Gaza after an 11‑week blockade by Israel during which no food entered the territory. The system has been widely criticised for forcing vast numbers of people to walk through active combat zones to a handful of sites. Since the GHF started up, Israeli forces have killed more than 400 Palestinians trying to retrieve food aid from its sites, according to the UN and local doctors. Israel says the new distribution system stops aid going to Hamas.