CNN
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At least 19 people were killed and 23 injured in Israeli shelling on Gaza residents waiting for humanitarian aid at the Kuwait roundabout in Gaza City on Saturday, according to the Gaza government media office.
Gaza's government media office said: “Occupation forces and tanks fired machine guns at starving people who were waiting for bags of flour and aid in remote areas that did not pose a threat to the occupation.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said reports that it attacked dozens of Gazans in a support convoy were false and that an investigation into the incident was ongoing.
Kuwait's roundabout in Gaza City is known as an area where aid trucks distribute food, and crowds of people seeking supplies gather.
The casualties were taken to Al-Ahly Baptist Hospital east of Gaza City, according to Gaza authorities and Kader al-Zaanun, a local journalist working for CNN on the ground.
Lieutenant Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza's Civil Defense Directorate, claimed that the casualties were “the result of the occupation Israeli forces targeting residents who went in search of food to help their families and children.”
Meanwhile, the IDF said in a statement: [local time], the IDF supported an aid convoy to deliver food to people in northern Gaza. As the convoy approached its designated distribution point, it was intercepted and pillaged by hundreds of Gazans north of the humanitarian corridor. ”
“Preliminary findings indicate that there were no air strikes against the convoy, nor were there any incidents in which IDF forces fired on people toward the support convoy,” the IDF claimed.
In a CNN video taken at a hospital shortly after the incident, several relatives of the victims said their loved ones were waiting to get flour and food when Israeli forces opened fire.
One of the men featured in the video, Ahmad al Ghoul, said his cousin died in the attack, adding: “Where is the international protection?” He went to buy food to feed his children, brothers and sisters, and his mother, he has 15 people to take care of. ”
Video from the scene on social media also showed multiple injured people and one person, believed to be dead, being carried from the scene on makeshift stretchers.
In recent weeks, there have been reports of deadly attacks by Israeli soldiers on crowds seeking aid. The Gaza-based government media agency said earlier this month that at least 400 people had been killed in similar incidents since the start of the war.
CNN cannot independently verify the Gaza government's figures because international media does not have access to the Gaza Strip.
Last week, the Palestinian Internal Security Forces in Gaza City announced a ban on gatherings at the Kuwait roundabout in order to protect lives, in view of “frequent massacres” by Israeli forces. It is unclear why aid was distributed near the Kuwait roundabout on Saturday.
From CNN's Kareem Kadar in Jerusalem, journalist Kadar al-Zaanun from Palestinian state news agency Wafa, and Lauren Kent in London.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
