Palestinian health officials and witnesses say Israeli forces fired on people as they headed toward an aid distribution site on Tuesday, killing at least 27, in the third such incident in three days.

The army said it fired “near a few individual suspects” who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots.

The near-daily shootings have come after an Israeli and U.S.-backed foundation established aid distribution points inside Israeli military zones, a system it says is designed to circumvent Hamas.

The United Nations has rejected the new system, saying it doesn't address Gaza's mounting hunger crisis and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon.

The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of casualties on Tuesday.

It previously said it fired warning shots at suspects who approached its forces early Sunday and Monday, when health officials and witnesses said 34 people were killed.

The military denies opening fire on civilians or blocking them from reaching the aid sites.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, says there has been no violence in or around them.

On Tuesday, it acknowledged that the Israeli military was investigating whether civilians were wounded “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone,” in an area that was “well beyond our secure distribution site.”

The shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout, around a kilometer (1,000 yards) from one of the GHF’s distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah.

The entire area is an Israeli military zone where journalists have no access outside of army-approved embeds.

At least 27 people were killed early Tuesday, according to Zaher al-Waheidi, the head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department.

There were three children and two women among the dead, according to Mohammed Saqr, head of nursing at Nasser Hospital.

Hospital director Atef al-Hout said most of the patients had gunshot wounds.

An Associated Press reporter who arrived at the Red Cross field hospital at around 6 a.m. saw wounded people being transferred to other hospitals by ambulance.

Outside, people were passing by on their way back from the aid hub, mostly empty-handed, while empty flour bags stained with blood lay on the ground.

AP Video shot by Marian Dagga

Production by Wafaa Shurafa