The strike was the latest violence surrounding the distribution of food to Gaza's population, which has been thrown into turmoil over the past month. After blocking all food for two and a half months, Israel has allowed only a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May.
Efforts by the United Nations to distribute the food have been plagued by armed gangs looting trucks and by crowds of desperate people offloading supplies from convoys.
The strike in the central town of Deir al-Balah on Thursday appeared to target members of Sahm, a security unit tasked with stopping looters and cracking down on merchants who sell stolen aid at high prices. The unit is part of Gaza's Hamas-led Interior Ministry, but includes members of other factions.
The dead included a child and at least seven Sahmt members, according to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where casualties were taken.
The US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates aid distribution sites in southern and central Gaza, said on X that it was the only humanitarian organisation permitted on Thursday to distribute food in Gaza.
A spokesperson said the foundation was exempt from a two-day suspension of humanitarian aid deliveries into the territory.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a joint statement with Defence Minister Israel Katz, said he'd ordered the military to present a plan within two days to prevent Hamas from taking control of aid.
They cited new unspecified information indicating that Hamas was seizing aid intended for civilians in northern Gaza.
But clan leaders say Hamas is protecting the aid deliveries into Gaza, not stealing from them.
The Higher Commission for Tribal Affairs, which represents influential clans in Gaza, said that trucks had been protected as part of an aid security process managed "solely through tribal efforts". The commission said that no Palestinian faction, a reference to Hamas, had taken part in the process.
Hamas, the militant group that has ruled Gaza for more than two decades but now controls only parts of the territory after nearly two years of war with Israel, has denied any involvement.
There is an acute shortage of food and other basic supplies after the nearly two-year military campaign by Israel that has displaced most of Gaza's two million inhabitants.
Aid trucks and warehouses storing supplies have often been looted, frequently by desperate and starving Palestinians. Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies.
A video shared on X by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, showed dozens of masked men, some armed with rifles but most carrying sticks, riding on aid trucks.
"The clans came ... to form a stance to prevent the aggressors and the thieves from stealing the food that belongs to our people," Abu Salman Al Moghani, a representative of Gazan clans, said, referring to Wednesday's operation.
The war began when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing nearly 1200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 others hostage into Gaza.
In response, Israel launched a military campaign that has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, according to local health authorities in Gaza.
At least 118 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since Wednesday, local health authorities said, including some shot near an aid distribution point, the latest in a series of such incidents.
with AP
9°C