Four Palestinians have died after a crowd forced its way into a U.N. World Food Programme warehouse in central Gaza in search of food on Wednesday.
Two people were fatally crushed and two died of gunshot wounds, The Associated Press reported, citing hospital officials. It was not immediately clear where the gunfire originated from.
The run on the warehouse came a day after at least one Palestinian was killed and 48 others wounded while collecting aid from a distribution hub in Rafah, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
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Crowds of Palestinians had broken through chain fences on Tuesday where thousands massed in an attempt to reach aid distributed under a controversial new U.S. and Israeli-backed organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Read More: $25 Butter and $40 Eggs: The Search for Food in Gaza
Adjith Sunghay, head of the U.N. Human Rights Office for the Palestinian territories, said it appeared that the casualties at the Rafah hub were a result of Israeli gunfire. Witnesses said Israeli forces started shooting after crowds broke through the fences around the aid distribution site as gunfire was heard in the distance, The Guardian reported.
But Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said Tuesday in a statement that the Israeli military “did not carry out any aerial fire toward the humanitarian aid distribution center” but “fired warning shots in the area outside the compound.”
The IDF has not yet responded to TIME’s request for comment.
“WFP has consistently warned of alarming and deteriorating conditions on the ground, and the risks imposed by limiting humanitarian aid to hungry people in desperate need of assistance,” the World Food Programme said in a statement posted to X on Wednesday after the incident at its warehouse. “Gaza needs an immediate scale-up of food assistance. This is the only way to reassure people that they will not starve.”
Israel has said it helped set up GHF to stop Hamas from stealing aid, but has provided no evidence of the systematic siphoning of aid. The U.N. and other agencies have rejected GHF’s aid distribution system, which uses U.S. security contractors, as unethical and unworkable.
“We warned against the militarized & politicized aid hubs that today ended in chaos and aid stolen & diverted from families in need. This fiasco could have been averted if our normal humanitarian system had not been blocked for months by Israel,” Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, wrote on X.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday “there was some loss of control momentarily” at the GHF distribution hub but that “happily, we brought it under control.”
Food security experts and aid groups have warned of an “imminent risk of famine” since Israel ended a two-month ceasefire on March 2 and launched a total blockade of Gaza. Israel said the measures were to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages held in Gaza.
A statement from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office on May 19 said Israel would ease the blockade and let in a “basic” amount of food to Gaza. The statement came hours after the IDF began a major ground offensive dubbed Gideon’s Chariots that would “take control of all areas” of the Strip.
On Sunday, the head of GHF, Jake Wood, stepped down citing concerns over the humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality and urged Israel to allow more aid into the Strip. The resignation came a day before GHF was due to begin distribution.
In a press briefing on Wednesday, the head of the U.N.’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA) for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Jonathan Whittall, said that the “new distribution model cannot possibly meet Gaza’s needs.”
Whittall said the U.N. and other humanitarian groups are capable of delivering aid to Gaza, as demonstrated when restrictions were eased during the last ceasefire, but their efforts to do so are being hindered by “the political decision to obstruct aid.”
GHF said on Sunday that 1 million Palestinians, just under half of those living in Gaza, would be given supplies by the end of the week.
Amid a lack of access to food and supplies, Israel has issued displacement orders as part of the expanded ground offensive. OCHA said Tuesday that an estimated 632,000 people have been displaced since Operation Gideon’s Chariots began earlier this month.