Analysis
Gazans are starving and Israel is killing them when they come searching for food
In their replies to questions from foreign reporters, the military has claimed the killings were necessary crowd-control measures.
The “vast majority” of patients who are managing to get to the Red Cross field hospital in Rafah were wounded while searching for food. According to the international organization, this has been the pattern ever since Israel seized total control of aid distribution. People are trying every day to reach Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites, and every day the Israeli army opens fire.
In their replies to questions from foreign reporters, the military has claimed the killings were necessary crowd-control measures, because the masses were posing a potential danger to its troops. However, International groups and eyewitnesses describe attacks carried out without any warning. In any case, the army’s statement amounts to an admission that the mechanism designed by Israel and the United States has failed. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that privatizing the aid system and excluding international agencies would end hunger and keep supplies out of the hands of Hamas.
The United Nations repeatedly warned Israel that forcing an entire population to converge on a handful of distribution hubs could never be a safe, dignified or acceptable humanitarian solution. Yet Tel Aviv, Washington and the underlings running the GHF refused to listen. Hunger is anything but gone; despair has risen, and so have the massacres.
As for keeping Hamas out of the delivery chain, a delivery system with zero tracking can hardly monitor who ends up receiving the food. Nor has Israel ever proved its accusation of Hamas hijacking food supplies. “If Hamas was indeed stealing a significant share of the food, where was it hiding it?” asks the editorial board of Haaretz. “Amassing such quantities would require Hamas to control giant hangars and warehouses in Gaza.” So far, the military has not reported finding anything like that.
Despite its clear failure, the militarized aid system is not being reconsidered. Palestinians keep dying near GHF sites. On Saturday, 25 people were killed south of the Netzarim corridor. Aid trucks – even the few UN vehicles allowed in – must cross the whole zone to reach distribution points.
But the food they deliver is not enough for all who need it, so the trucks are often stormed before they vanish behind the gates. The army said that by firing a missile into the crowd they had “eliminated the suspects.” Tel Aviv acknowledges that several civilians were wounded and, as always, promises an investigation.
At least 44 more people were killed on Saturday across Gaza, bringing the two-day toll to 202. Twelve died in Deir al-Balah when a residential building was bombed. Tents in the so-called “humanitarian zone” of Mawasi – where the army is pushing the displaced – were hit again; the Wafa agency reports at least three dead.
In Mawasi, the Palestinian Red Crescent has opened a new field hospital to treat the hundreds of thousands living in desperate conditions. According to the UN, Israel has deported about one million people to Mawasi; most survive in canvas shelters with minimal services and scant aid.
Life under occupation is worsening in the West Bank as well. The siege of refugee camps in the north has dragged on since January, and house demolitions in Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams have never ceased. More than 50 buildings have been razed in Tulkarem over the past two weeks. The army is bulldozing whole neighborhoods to carve out wide roads that alter the camps’ layout and allow tanks and bulldozers to reach every corner quickly.
In Masafer Yatta, in the hills south of Hebron, another wave of demolitions could soon sweep through Palestinian villages already battered for years by army destruction and settler assaults.
On Wednesday, the Israeli Higher Planning Council reaffirmed that the occupied tract of Palestinian territory will be converted into a closed military zone for Israeli army exercises. All applications and permits legally filed by village residents will therefore be denied, the Palestinians deported and their homes demolished. Several settlements have been built in the same area, housing thousands of Israelis which are not subject to any evacuation order.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/affamati-e-ammazzati-nella-trappola-ghf-disperazione-a-gaza on 2025-06-22