Thousands of Palestinians have overwhelmed a food distribution centre in southern Gaza, driven by hunger after nearly three months without access to fresh supplies.

It was a chaotic scene on Tuesday in the southern city of Rafah, as men, women and children thronged the aid centre, seeking food to stave off malnutrition and starvation.

Israeli soldiers used gunfire to disperse the desperate crowds, as they tugged at the fences separating them from food boxes.

Starting on March 2, Israel had imposed a total blockade on aid into war-torn Gaza, as part of the military offensive it began in the Palestinian enclave in October 2023.

As fears of famine grew, so too did international pressure on Israel. Allies including the United Kingdom, France and Canada warned Israel earlier this month that it could face sanctions if aid restrictions were not lifted.

Days later, Israel announced it would allow “minimal” deliveries of essential supplies to resume.

But that announcement was controversial, not least for Israel’s decision to bypass traditional aid distribution networks, like those run by the United Nations.

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Instead, it tapped the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a United States-backed nonprofit, to lead the effort.

“There were a lot of questions raised, even within the Israeli government, about how exactly this was going to operate,” said Al Jazeera correspondent Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, Jordan.

“Now, as you can see here, the private company that was put in place to distribute this aid has completely lost control.”

Israel has blamed the armed Palestinian group Hamas for the chaos at the aid centre, something the group has denied.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Hamas instead blamed Israel for failing to “manage the humanitarian crisis it deliberately created”.

Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamed Vall also reported there was no evidence that Hamas has disrupted the aid distribution. He instead pointed to the sheer need: More than two million Palestinians live in Gaza.

“These are the people of Gaza, the civilians of Gaza, trying to get just a piece of food — just any piece of food for their children, for themselves,” he said.

Vall added that there was also scepticism on the ground about the motives behind concentrating aid distribution in the south of Gaza.

“They say the reason why [Israeli officials] did this, the reason why they established these distribution points only in the south is that they want to encourage people — or even force them — to flee from the north,” Vall explained.

The fear remains, he said, that moving Palestinians southwards could be a “preliminary phase for the complete ousting” of Gaza’s population.

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According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 54,056 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, which humanitarian aid groups and United Nations experts have compared to a genocide.

Here are some scenes from Tuesday’s aid distribution efforts.