Palestinians storm US-backed aid centres

Thousands of Palestinians rushed into a new aid distribution centre run by a US-backed group in southern Gaza on Tuesday, AFP journalists reported, leading to chaotic scenes as Israel implemented a new distribution system.

The incident in Rafah came days after the partial easing of a total aid blockade on the territory that Israel imposed since March 2, leading to severe shortages of food and medicine.

According to the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) normal operations resumed following the incident.

"I was standing in the line at an aid distribution point in Rafah with hundreds of citizens, and suddenly a large number of people started pushing and entering randomly," Ayman Abu Zaid, a displaced Gazan, told AFP.

"It was because of the lack of aid and the delay in distribution, so they tried to get in to take whatever they could."

At one point, "the Israeli forces started shooting, and the sound was very frightening, and people began to scatter, but some still kept trying to take the aid despite the danger," he added.

The Israeli military later said its "troops fired warning shots in the area outside the compound".

"Control over the situation was established, food distribution operations are expected to continue as planned, and the safety of IDF troops was not compromised," it said.

The GHF said in a statement that there was a point at which the "volume of people at the SDS (distribution centre) was such that the GHF team fell back to allow a small number of Gazans to take aid safely and dissipate".

"Normal operations have resumed," it added.

AFP footage showed crowds of people streaming out of the area on Tuesday carrying supplies, including in boxes marked "GHF".

GHF also blamed "blockades imposed by Hamas" for creating delays of several hours at one of its centres.

In a statement of its own, Hamas's government media office said Israel's new efforts to distribute aid in Gaza had "failed miserably".