A UN team that visited al-Sifah hospital in Gaza on Friday, which has received dozens of wounded after the tragedy that killed more than 110 people during a humanitarian aid distribution, saw “a large number of bullet wounds”, a UN spokesman said, according to AFP .

The incident took place on the Al-Rashid coastal road in the Gaza StripPhoto: Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

Staff from the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), WHO and UNICEF, the first to visit the north of the country in more than a week, spent just over two hours on Friday morning at this hospital in Gaza City, bringing medicine and fuel, explained Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman Secretary General of the United Nations.

“Al-Shifa Hospital is said to have received more than 700 wounded yesterday, of which 200 are still in the hospital, and during this visit, the hospital staff informed them that they received the bodies of 70 people killed yesterday” after the chaos during aid distribution, he added.

When asked about the cause of death, he said he did not know whether the group members had conducted examinations of the bodies.

But from what they saw, “there were a lot of bullet wounds among the live patients being treated,” he said.

On Thursday, witnesses said Israeli soldiers fired on a hungry crowd rushing toward aid trucks in northern Gaza City. According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, the number of dead was 115, and about 760 were injured.

Hamas says at least 112 Palestinians have been killed and another 760 wounded after the IDF opened fire on a crowd storming a humanitarian convoy entering Gaza.

The Israeli military says its tanks fired a warning shot, but they missed the aid trucks and most of the dead were killed in the stampede.

The IDF also confirmed that its soldiers opened fire, but said it only happened after the soldiers felt threatened and endangered by crowd movements, and that fewer than 10 victims were killed by gunfire.

Hamas rejected the claims, saying there was “irrefutable” evidence that the IDF had deliberately and “directly” fired on civilians.

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