Former US Green Beret says Israel committed war crimes at Gaza food distribution site | BBC News

A former US veteran who was employed at a food distribution site in Gaza has accused members of the Israel Defence Forces and American colleagues of deliberately targeting and killing unarmed Palestinian civilians.

Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Aguilar, a former special forces veteran, was recruited to work for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a joint Israeli-US scheme replacing the United Nations food distribution operation in Gaza.

He has told the BBC he witnessed the IDF shooting at the crowds of Palestinians, firing a main tank round into a car carrying civilians and firing mortars at crowds of hungry people waiting for food.

Mr Aguilar told the BBC: “In my entire career I have never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed starving population. I’ve never witnessed that in all the places I’ve been deployed to war, until I was in Gaza at the hands of the IDF and US contractors... Without question I witnessed war crimes by the Israeli Defence Forces, without a doubt. Using artillery rounds, mortar rounds, tank rounds into unarmed civilians is a war crime.”

The United Nations says hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza while seeking food at the aid distribution points run by the GHF.

Israel insists its forces have not targeted civilians, that it targets Hamas and that its use of force in Gaza is proportionate.

It comes as Israel faces international condemnation over the lack of food supplies reaching civilians in Gaza, with the UN and aid agencies reporting that people are dying of starvation.

Reeta Chakrabarti presents BBC News at Ten reporting by International Editor Jeremy Bowen.