The US- and Israeli-backed group handing out aid in Gaza says all its distribution sites have been closed until further notice, urging residents to stay away from the facilities "for their safety" after a series of deadly shootings.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which last week started handing out meals to hungry Palestinians inside the war-shattered Gaza Strip, said that a reopening date would be announced later.
The organisation had reopened two of its sites in southern Gaza on Thursday, after closing all four of them the previous day in the wake of nearby shootings.
GHF bypasses traditional relief agencies and has been criticised by humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations, for its alleged lack of neutrality, which it denies.
In its first site closure on Wednesday, the group said it was pressing the Israeli military to improve civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its operations, after dozens of Palestinians were shot dead near its Rafah aid distribution site over three consecutive days.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday and Monday said its soldiers had fired only warning shots, while on Tuesday it said Israeli soldiers also fired towards a number of Palestinians it said had been advancing towards its troops.
However, Palestinian authorities and eyewitnesses said Israeli troops had shot into the crowd on Sunday, claims backed up by a CNN analysis of footage of the incident.
GHF said aid had been safely handed out from its sites without incident — however it would only comment on what had occurred within the perimeter of its facilities, declaring anything that occurred outside that perimeter the responsibility of the IDF.
A video of armed gunmen firing on civilians released by the IDF implied Hamas was behind the Sunday shooting, however ABC News determined the footage was recorded in the Al-Wafiye neighbourhood in southern Khan Younis, about 8 kilometres away from Rafah.
Israel has steadily ramped up its offensive against the Gaza-based Hamas militant group since the end of a ceasefire in March, and until last month had been preventing the entry of any aid to the besieged territory, prompting the United Nations to warn Palestinian children were in danger of mass starvation.
More than 50,000 Palestinians have died in the war so far, with international experts estimating about 80 per cent of those casualties to be civilians.
The war was prompted by Hamas's October 7, 2023 terror attack on southern Israel, which killed almost 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and saw a further 251 taken hostage in the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu confirms Israel funded anti-Hamas pacts in Gaza
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted that Israel is supporting an armed group in Gaza that opposes the militant group Hamas.
Israeli and Palestinian media have reported that the group Israel has been working with is part of a local Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab.
Former Israeli defence minister Avigdor Liberman had told the Kan public broadcaster that the government, at Mr Netanyahu's direction, was "giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons."
In response, Mr Netanyahu questioned whether or not Mr Liberman actually leaked anything of note.
"What did Liberman leak? That security sources activated a clan in Gaza that opposes Hamas? What is bad about that?" he said on social media.
"It is only good, it is saving lives of Israeli soldiers."
The European Council on Foreign Relations (EFCR) think tank describes Mr Abu Shabab as the leader of a "criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks".
Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestinian affairs at the Moshe Dayan Centre in Tel Aviv, told AFP that the Abu Shabab clan was part of a Bedouin tribe that spans across the border between Gaza and Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
Some of the tribe's members, he said, were involved in "all kinds of criminal activities, drug smuggling, and things like that."
Reuters/ABC/AFP
