‘There was no aid, only bullets’: Witnesses recount Rafah killings by Israel

Hisham Mhanna, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said its field hospital in Rafah treated 184 wounded Palestinians following an Israeli assault early on Wednesday morning near an aid distribution site.

Nineteen people were already dead when they arrived, and eight more succumbed to their injuries shortly after.

The bodies of the 27 victims were later moved to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old displaced man from Rafah, described the chaos as gunfire erupted around 4am near the city’s Flag Roundabout, roughly one kilometre from the aid hub. "I saw people drop, some killed, others bleeding on the ground," the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Neima al-Aaraj, a woman from Khan Younis, shared a grim account.

"There were many martyrs and wounded," she told AP. She described the Israeli gunfire as "indiscriminate" and said she walked away empty-handed after making it to the site.

"There was no aid there," she added. "After the martyrs and wounded, I won’t return. Either way, we will die."

Rasha al-Nahal, another witness, said gunfire came "from all directions". She counted more than a dozen bodies and several injured on the roadside. “They fired at us even as we turned back,” she said, noting the absence of any aid at the location.