May 27 (UPI) -- Thousands swarmed two food distribution sites in Gaza on the first day that a U.S.-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began delivering humanitarian assistance on Tuesday.
A new U.S.-Israeli mechanism for delivering humanitarian assistance into Gaza that bypasses the United Nations and other aid agencies in favor of armed private contractors got underway.
Palestinians began flooding the two distribution sites located in Rafah in southern Gaza, which led to chaos, warning shots fired and the evacuation of staff to safety, ABC News reported.
Israel Defense Forces issued a statement saying ground troops fired warning shots near the distribution sites as thousands of people flooded into the area.
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"Control over the situation was established, food distribution operations are expected to continue as planned," the IDF said.
Video footage showed crowds of Gazans stepping over fences that were torn down and walking over earth berms, the BBC reported.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said Monday it had begun distributing food to residents after lorry loads of supplies had been unloaded at secure hubs in the besieged Palestinian enclave -- but did not provide details of quantities or the areas where it was being distributed.
"More trucks with aid will be delivered Tuesday, with the flow of aid increasing each day," it said in a statement.
However, only around a dozen men with boxes under their arms were shown leaving an unspecified site in accompanying photos, according to the BBC.
The U.N. and traditional aid agencies reject the scheme, which aims to prevent aid from allegedly being stolen and resold by Hamas to fund its military operations against Israel, saying it goes against humanitarian ethics and "weaponizes" the issue of aid.
Some 400 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were waiting for the U.N. in Gaza, but "the U.N. still refuse[s] to do its job," the IDF said Tuesday in a post on X.
The IDF cautioned that people "don't fall for misinformation" and said "logistical and security protocols have been adjusted" at the aid-distribution sites.
GHF Chief Operating Officer David Burke resigned a day after the body's executive director and former U.S. Marine, Jake Wood, resigned, saying the scheme fell short of the central humanitarian tenets of "humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence."
The board of GHF called Wood's departure two months into the job "disappointing," but vowed to press on with its work, with the goal of getting aid to more than 1 million people in Gaza by Sunday.
Burke did not immediately comment on his decision to resign from GHF, which is registered as a non-profit in both Switzerland and the U.S. state of Delaware.
GHF's mission director in Gaza, John Acree, a former United States Agency for International Development official, has been appointed as Wood's acting replacement.
The start of the GHF mission came a week after Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade after coming under intense international pressure amid warnings of an imminent famine in Gaza, including unprecedented threats of "concrete actions" from Britain, France and Canada.
Aside from practical issues facing the infirm, the injured or children fending for themselves, the international aid community said the scheme would cause more displacement, place thousands of people in harm's way, link aid to political and military goals and establish an intolerable precedent.
Norwegian Refugee Council General Secretary Jan Egeland called for a return to the tried and tested system developed by the U.N. and international aid agencies over many decades.
He accused GHF of being "militarized, privatized, politicized" and "not in conformity with neutrality."
