Gaza aid distribution 'As we got closer gunfire resumed, shrapnel scattered'

Just after midnight on Thursday morning, Abdullah Ahmed left his sleeping wife and children in their small and crowded home in the battered Bureij camp in central Gaza and headed north.

- Jason Burke Malak A Tantesh Gaza

Just after midnight on Thursday morning, Abdullah Ahmed left his sleeping wife and children in their small and crowded home in the battered Bureij camp in central Gaza and headed north. The 31-year-old vegetable seller had heard that the nearby aid distribution site recently opened by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a secretive Israeli- and US-backed private organisation that began operations in the territory last month, would be handing out food at 2am. To get there early and maximise his chance of grabbing a box of flour, oil, beans and other basics, Ahmed and some friends set out across the rubble-strewn roads. Just reaching the vicinity of the aid hub, one of four run by the GHF, was dangerous.

"All the time we could hear the sound of shells and stray bullets flying over us. We kept taking cover behind the ruins of houses. Whoever doesn't take cover is exposed to death," he said.

In the last week there have been similar scenes across Gaza, as tens of thousands of hungry, desperate people converged on the GHF sites or waited at points where aid trucks loaded with UN flour were expected. Every day, somewhere in the devastated territory, these gatherings had a similarly lethal conclusion when Israeli forces opened fire.

The exact toll over the last 12 days is unclear. Medical authorities in Gaza say about 450 have died, with thousands more injured. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) admits that some were hurt by their fire, but have not admitted any deaths in shooting that they say is directed at "suspects" who posed a threat to their forces and only ever followed warnings shots.