A new Israeli-backed aid initiative opened a third hub in Gaza on Thursday to try to get more food to a desperate population. But more chaotic scenes unfolded during the opening, similar to the launch of the first center this week.
The United Nations and other aid groups have declined to cooperate with the new aid mechanism, known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, describing it as a militarized distribution system that violates humanitarian principles.
On Thursday, crowds of hungry Palestinians scrambled for handouts and dodged stun grenades that were fired outside the new aid hub to disperse crowds, according to videos verified by The New York Times. Some, carrying their aid bundles, climbed over earthen walls surrounding the site in Al-Bureij, in central Gaza. It was unclear who had fired the stun grenades.
A day earlier, a large crowd of desperate Palestinians broke into a warehouse run by the U.N.’s World Food Program in Gaza in search of food and flour. Program officials said initial reports indicated that two people had been killed.
On Tuesday, at the chaotic launch of the new aid initiative, thousands of hungry Palestinians rushed another food distribution site, prompting Israeli forces outside the compound to fire warning shots to disperse the crowds.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said on Thursday that “nonlethal means” had been used to disperse crowds that were refusing to leave the new aid hub, but that no one was injured. The foundation did not say who had opened fired. The Israeli military denied opening fire near the hub on Thursday. The foundation is run by private American companies, with Israeli forces guarding the compounds’ perimeter.
The new aid operation is intended to bypass Hamas, which Israel accuses of siphoning off aid, selling it for profit and using it as a tool to control Gazans.
The U.N. says the new system is woefully insufficient to meet the basic needs for Palestinians’ survival after an 80-day Israeli blockade brought much of the territory to the brink of famine. Hundreds of distribution points existed under the previous U.N. aid-distribution system. But the new system had only three systems operating by Thursday, up from two on Wednesday.
Separately from the new system, some U.N. aid trucks are making their way through a single border crossing into southern Gaza. But U.N. officials say that distribution to warehouses and bakeries inside Gaza has been hampered by the lack of secure routes, and that negligible quantities of food are reaching the people who need it.
The United Nations said the Israeli authorities had cleared about 800 truckloads of aid since the blockade was lifted last week. Only about 200 of them have moved out to the population, however, because of the dangers surrounding aid distribution.
“That’s better than absolutely nothing,” said Olga Cherevko, a member of the U.N. humanitarian team for Gaza. “But it is less than a drop in the ocean.”
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said on Thursday that it had distributed enough supplies throughout the day for nearly a million meals and that, in total to date, it had distributed about 17,200 boxes of provisions, enough for more than 1.8 million meals.
The group said it planned to build additional sites in the coming weeks, including in northern Gaza.
Against the backdrop of the humanitarian crisis and growing international pressure to end the war in Gaza, Israel and Hamas were considering a new version of a cease-fire proposal from President Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff. The full details of the new plan remain unclear.
Both Israel and Hamas have said they would accept some of its terms, including the release of 10 living hostages held by Hamas and the remains of others who died in captivity, in exchange for a number of Palestinians in Israeli custody.
An Israeli official familiar with the details said the initial phase of the deal would include a 60-day cease-fire and a flow of aid through U.N.-run operations. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the sensitive negotiations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
It was unclear whether the new proposal would address the main sticking point between the sides. Israel is insisting on having the option to resume fighting if Hamas does not surrender and disarm. Hamas is demanding firm guarantees that a temporary cease-fire would lead to a permanent cessation of hostilities and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Israel ended a previous cease-fire in March and has since embarked on a new phase of fighting, expanding its control over larger sections of the territory.
Israel bombed Gaza again on Thursday, and Gaza’s health ministry said hospitals had received more than 60 bodies over the past 24 hours.
Khalil Degran, a spokesman for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, said his facility had received 20 bodies on Thursday morning after a reported Israeli airstrike in Al-Bureij, a few miles to the north.
The victims included nine children, Mr. Degran said.
“The situation is catastrophic and dire,” he said. “We simply don’t have the capacity to provide adequate medical care.”
The Israeli military said it had struck a Hamas cell in the area of Al-Bureij and was reviewing the attack after reports that uninvolved civilians had been killed.
Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Isabel Kershner, a Times correspondent in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.
Sanjana Varghese is a reporter on The Times’s Visual Investigations team, specializing in the use of advanced digital techniques to analyze visual evidence.
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