At least 20 people were killed and another 155 were wounded Thursday in an attack on a crowd waiting for food aid in the battle-weary Gaza Strip, according to health officials.

A U.S. Air Force C-130 drops humanitarian aid by parachute over the northern Gaza Strip as seen from inside southern Israel on March 10, 2024. An attack on a food distribution point in Gaza City Thursday killed 21 and wounded at least 150 others. 

The death toll, announced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in a statement, is expected to rise as the situation unfolds and casualties are taken to the Shifa Medical Complex.

The ministry said dozens came under Israeli shelling while waiting for humanitarian aid close to the Kuwaiti roundabout in northern Gaza City. The WAFA Palestinian news agency reported that the roundabout has been designated for the delivery of U.N. aid, and was subject to Israeli approval.

The ministry accused the Israeli forces of "targeting" the civilians.

"What happened at the Kuwaiti roundabout points to hidden intentions of the occupation to commit a new, horrible, massacre," the ministry said in a statement.

"The process of picking up the martyrs and removing the wounded is still ongoing despite the difficult situation on the field at the Kuwaiti roundabout."

Gaza Civil Defense Spokesman Mahmoud Basal doubled down on the health ministry's charges that Israel is behind the attack.

"The Israeli occupation forces are still practicing the policy of killing innocent citizens waiting for relief aid as a result of the famine occurring in the northern Gaza Strip," Basal said in a statement late Thursday.

The attack is the latest reported targeting of people waiting for humanitarian aid in the Palestinian enclave.

A U.N. food distribution center in the southern Gaza border city of Rafah was shelled by Israel on Wednesday, killing at least five people, according to health officials.

UNRWA, the U.N.'s relief mission for Palestinian refugees, said one of its workers was killed and 22 others were injured in the strike.

The distribution center is one of the few that remain in Gaza amid tapped supplies, widespread hunger and the spread of famine in some areas, it said.

"Every day, we share the coordinates of all our facilities across the Gaza Strip with parties to the conflict," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarin said in a statement.

"The Israeli Army received the coordinates including of this facility yesterday."

Late last month, more than 100 people were killed and another 760 injured as they were waiting aid near the Al-Nabulsi roundabout in what has since become known as the Flour Massacre.

On Feb. 19, five Palestinians were killed in several others were injured while awaiting the delivery of humanitarian aid at the Kuwaiti roundabout when they can under attack by reportedly Israeli Defense Forces quadcopters, according to the U.N. human rights agency.

Israel's military has said it plans to relocate 1.4 million displaced Palestinians from the Rafah to "humanitarian enclaves" before launching an offensive there.

Israel Denies Alleged ‘Massacre’ of 20+ People Waiting for Food Aid in Gaza

Palestinian officials and the Israeli military have put forward conflicting explanations as to how multiple people were killed in yet another incident while they were waiting for a delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza on Thursday evening.

According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, at least 20 people were killed and another 155 were injured when Israeli forces intentionally “targeted” those waiting for the aid convoy at the Kuwaiti roundabout in Gaza City. The Israel Defense Forces has denied the allegation, claiming that “Palestinian gunmen” had been shooting near civilians before the convoy arrived.

The Gazan health ministry said people wounded in the incident had been taken to the Al Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City. It added that medical teams “are unable to deal with the volume and type of injuries arriving” to hospitals in northern Gaza due to staff and medical shortages which have plagued the enclave since the outbreak of war.

Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, said in a post on X that the reports of Gazans being targeted at a “humanitarian aid distribution point are incorrect.” On Friday, he offered a more detailed account of what took place.

He claimed that 31 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were allowed into the Gaza Strip on Thursday. “About an hour before the aid convoy arrived at the humanitarian corridor, Palestinian gunmen were spotted shooting near Gazan civilians who were waiting for the convoy,” he said. “As the trucks entered, the gunmen continued to shoot while the crowds looted the truckloads. Some civilians who were injured as a result of being run over by trucks were also spotted.”

Adraee said the IDF would continue to investigate the incident but claimed an initial review had ruled out any Israeli fire from the air, tanks, or ground forces “towards the crowds in the vicinity of the aid convoy in the Kuwait roundabout.”

“While the IDF is making an intensive humanitarian effort and pumping food supplies and humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip, Hamas terrorists are targeting Gazans who are trying to obtain food supplies,” he claimed. “However, lies are being spread to accuse Israel of this, creating a false media wave in preparation for the first Friday of the month of Ramadan.”

The deaths Thursday echoed a similarly disputed event on Feb. 29, when at least 112 people were killed while waiting to collect flour in Gaza. The so-called “flour massacre” was condemned by U.N. officials who called for Israel to “end its campaign of starvation and targeting of civilians.”

The IDF said people were killed by “trampling” in a stampede triggered as crowds looted trucks though a military investigation reportedly found that an order had been given for troops to shoot at the legs of those allegedly posing a threat to Israeli soldiers.

A quarter of Gaza’s population is starving because of the war, according to the U.N. Israel is facing immense international pressure to allow more aid into the strip, where over 31,000 Palestinians have been killed over the course of the five-month conflict. The U.S. has announced plans to build a pier to allow more aid to enter Gaza and has joined Jordan and other countries in conducting airdrops, but humanitarian groups say safe land corridors are needed to supply the necessary quantities of support.

Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas killed 1,200 people and kidnapped another 250 on Oct. 7, according to Israeli figures.