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A CNN investigation points to the Israeli military opening fire on crowds of Palestinians as they tried to get food in Rafah, Gaza.
Mohammed Saqer, 43, told CNN in an interview that he only narrowly escaped death, watching people around him get shot in the head as he crouched on the ground, hoping to survive long enough to reach the site run by GHF and get food for his family.
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Robert Maher, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Montana State University, who specializes in forensic audio analysis, examined the footage for CNN and said that the bursts of gunfire were at a rate of 15 and 16 shots per second (or 900 and 960 per minute), fired from a distance of about a quarter of a mile (450 meters).
Based on the erratic nature of the sound, Maher said that the shots seemed to be spread out, fired repeatedly in one direction. “Since the cracks are irregular, it seems more like the gunfire was being sprayed over the area.”
Trevor Ball, a former US Army senior explosive ordnance disposal team member, said the rate of fire was consistent with the FN MAG, a heavily-used machine gun in the Israeli military’s arsenal. The FN MAG is commonly equipped on the IDF’s Merkava tanks, which several eyewitnesses said they saw open fire on the crowds.
Ball told CNN he could not confirm the specific weaponry used, or who fired it, but the rate of fire, he said, indicated it wasn’t consistent with machine guns used by Hamas.
Ball also said the tracer fire – ammunition containing a pyrotechnic charge illuminating its trajectory – seen in the GHF’s footage is consistent with the use of machine guns. “Typically belt fed machine guns have tracer rounds inserted every few rounds. So while only 3 tracers are visible in the video, more rounds were fired.”