The health ministry on Tuesday reported that Israeli tank shellfire killed at least 51 Palestinians as they awaited aid trucks in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
The ministry added that dozens of others were wounded.
According to medics, more than 200 people were wounded, with at least 20 of them in critical condition.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military on the incident.
Witnesses said Israeli tanks fired at least two shells at thousands of people awaiting aid trucks.
Nasser Hospital wards were crowded with casualties, and medical workers had to place some on the ground and in corridors due to the lack of space.
The incident was the latest in nearly daily mass deaths of Palestinians who were seeking aid in the past weeks, including near sites operated by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Local health officials said at least 23 people were killed by Israeli gunfire on Monday as they approached a GHF aid distribution site in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
The GHF released a press release on Monday stating that it had distributed more than three million meals at its four distribution sites without incident.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about Monday’s reports of shootings.
In previous incidents, it has occasionally acknowledged troops opening fire near aid sites while blaming militants for provoking the violence.
Israel has put responsibility for distributing much of the aid it allows into Gaza into the hands of the GHF which operates sites in areas guarded by Israeli troops.
The United Nations has rejected the plan, saying GHF distribution is inadequate, dangerous, and violates humanitarian impartiality principles.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli allies.
Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, while internally displacing nearly Gaza’s entire population and causing a hunger crisis.
The assault has also triggered accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court.
Israel, however, denies the accusations.
