Four Palestinians die in storming of UN food warehouse a day after gunfire at new Gaza aid site

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Hundreds of Palestinians stormed a United Nations food warehouse Wednesday in Gaza in a desperate attempt to get something to eat, shouting and shoving each other and ripping off pieces of the building to get inside. Four people died in the chaos, hospital officials said.

The deaths came a day after a crowd was fired upon while overrunning a new aid-distribution sitein Gaza set up by an Israeli and U.S.-backed foundation, killing at least one Palestinian and wounding 48 others, Gaza's Health Ministry said.

The Israeli military, which guards the site from a distance, said it fired only warning shots to control the situation. The foundation said its military contractors guarding the site did not open fire. A Red Cross field hospital said the 48 people wounded suffered gunshot wounds, including women and children.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country killed senior Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, the brother of Yahya Sinwar, one of the masterminds of the militant group's Oct. 7, 2023, attack, who was killed by Israeli forces last year. Speaking before parliament, Netanyahu included Mohammed Sinwar in a list of Hamas leaders killed by Israeli forces, apparently confirming his death in a recent airstrike in Gaza.

In other developments, Israel carried out airstrikes on the international airport in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, destroying the last plane belonging to the country's flagship airline. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said it was the last plane used by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

It was not immediately clear if anyone was killed or wounded in the strikes, which came after Houthi rebels fired several missiles at Israel in recent days, without causing casualties.

The Israeli-backed distribution hub outside Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah was opened Monday by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been slated by Israel to take over aid operations.

The crowd of Palestinians broke through fences Tuesday around the distribution site where thousands had gathered. An Associated Press journalist heard Israeli tank and gunfire and saw a military helicopter firing flares.

The U.N. and other humanitarian organizations have rejected the new aid system, saying it will not be able to feed Gaza's 2.3 million people and that it lets Israel use food to control the population. They have also warned of the risk of friction between Israeli troops and people seeking supplies.

Four dead as crowd storms warehouse holding U.N. aid

Palestinians burst into the U.N.'s World Food Program warehouse Wednesday in central Gaza. Two people were fatally crushed in the crowd, while two others died of gunshot wounds, officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

Scores of aid-seekers could be seen carrying large bags of flour as they fought their way back out into the sunlight through throngs of people pressing to get inside. Each bag of flour weighs around 25 kilograms (55 pounds).

A United Nations envoy compared the limited aid being allowed into Gaza to ''a lifeboat after the ship has sunk.'' Sigrid Kaag, acting U.N. special coordinator for the Mideast, told the U.N. Security Council that people facing famine in Gaza ''have lost hope.''

''Instead of saying ‘goodbye,' Palestinians in Gaza now say, 'See you in heaven,''' Kaag said.

The World Food Program said ''humanitarian needs have spiraled out of control" after Israel's long blockade of supplies entering Gaza, which began in early March to pressure Hamas.

The Palestinian ambassador to the U.N. broke down as he spoke of the 1,300 children killed and 4,000 wounded since Israel ended the latest ceasefire in March, and of mothers seen ''embracing their motionless bodies, caressing their hair, talking to them, apologizing to them.''

''If this is civilized,'' Riyad Mansour said, ''what is barbarism?''

Wael Tabsh, a displaced man from the city of Khan Younis, urged world leaders to help end the war.

''How long will this torture last?" he asked.

Violence erupted soon after new hub opened

Palestinians are desperate for food after nearly three months of Israeli border closures have pushed Gaza to the brink of famine.

Israel says it helped establish the new aid mechanism to prevent Hamas from siphoning off supplies, but it has provided no evidence of systematic diversion, and U.N. agencies say they have mechanisms in place to prevent it while delivering aid to all parts of the territory.

GHF says it has established four hubs, two of which have begun operating in the now mostly uninhabited Rafah. It said around eight truckloads of aid were distributed at the hubs on Wednesday without incident.

About 600 trucks entered Gaza every day during the ceasefire earlier this year.

The GHF sites are guarded by private security contractors and have chain-link fences channeling Palestinians into a what resemble military bases surrounded by large sand berms. Israeli forces are stationed nearby in a military zone separating Rafah from the rest of the territory.

The U.N. and other aid groups have refused to participate in GHF's system, saying it violates humanitarian principles. They say it can be used by Israel to forcibly displace the population by requiring them to move near the few distribution hubs or else face starvation, a violation of international law.

Netanyahu said Tuesday there was only a brief ''loss of control'' at the site.

He repeated that Israel plans to move Gaza's entire population to a ''sterile zone'' at the southern end of the territory while troops fight Hamas elsewhere. Netanyahu has also vowed to facilitate what he refers to as the voluntary emigration of much of Gaza's population to other countries, a plan that Palestinians and many others view as forcible expulsion.

Israel says it destroyed the Houthis' last plane

The Israeli strikes on the main airport in Yemen destroyed the last plane belonging to the country's flagship carrier, Yemenia, according to the airport. The airline did not say if anyone was wounded.

Yemenia had a total of four registered aircraft, according to the plane-tracking website FlightRadar24. Israel destroyed three in a May 6 airstrike on the airport that also riddled the runway with craters.

Houthi-backed Yemeni President Mahdi al-Mashat visited the airport Wednesday and said his group ''will not back down'' from its support of people in Gaza until the siege ends, according to SABA Yemen News Agency.

The Houthis have targeted Israel throughout the war in Gaza in solidarity with Palestinians, raising their profile at home and internationally as the last member of Iran's self-described ''Axis of Resistance'' capable of launching regular attacks on Israel.

The Houthi missiles have mostly been intercepted, although some have penetrated Israel's missile defense systems, causing casualties and damage. Israel has frequently struck back, especially around the vital Hodeida port.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in the Oct. 7 attack, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas still holds 58 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive. Most of the rest were released in ceasefire deals or other agreements. Israeli forces have rescued eight and recovered dozens of bodies.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry says women and children make up most of the dead, but it does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.

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Magdy reported from Cairo, and Lidman reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Edith Lederer in New York contributed to this report.

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