‘Aid trap’: Civilians come under Israeli fire while waiting for roadside flour distribution in north Gaza, conflicting announcements sow deadly chaos in south

Dozens of flour trucks entered northern Gaza late Saturday night without any announced distribution mechanism, while in the south, conflicting Israeli announcements left thousands waiting at shuttered aid centers and under attack.

The trucks entered Gaza through the Zikim crossing on the northern border with Israel, but Israeli forces blocked them from reaching storage facilities and their contents were distributed directly to civilians instead, eyewitnesses told Mada Masr. Thousands waiting for the vehicles in the western areas were shot at.

In the south, civilians continue to be attacked as they make their way to the aid distribution point run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the upstart organization with ties to American and Israeli intelligence and military institutions.

Trucks carrying UN flour resort to ‘self-distribution’ but Palestinians in the north still under attack

After weeks of attempting to deliver flour to Gaza without relying on the deadly distribution points run by the GHF or the chaos-inducing distribution mechanisms imposed by the Occupation, the United Nations appears to have agreed to implement a new method of aid distribution.

Eyewitnesses and truckers told Mada Masr that UN staff accompanied aid trucks into the strip over the weekend and then allowed aid to be “self-distributed.”

In the darkness, Hamed al-Bitar* walked six kilometers from his home in Gaza City on Saturday to the Amoudi area in the north, where crowds had gathered in anticipation of incoming aid trucks. Around midnight, Bitar, along with thousands of others, spotted a light approaching from the north. Believing it to be the aid trucks, people rushed forward. But as they drew closer, they realized the light was coming from an Israeli tank, Bitar said. The crowd turned and fled as the tank opened fire indiscriminately while advancing. Shortly after, quadcopter drones arrived, firing bullets and dropping explosives on the crowd, he said.

According to eyewitness Alaa Hammouda, thousands of Palestinians had also gathered earlier that afternoon in the Sudaniya area in northwest Gaza City, also waiting for the flour convoy. But hours before the trucks arrived, Israeli forces opened fire. Tanks moved in, killing and injuring several people, he said.

Seven Palestinians were killed while waiting for aid in Beit Lahia and western Gaza, Al-Jazeera reported on Sunday. The trucks began to arrive at 1 am, accompanied by UN vehicles and local security personnel. Hammouda, who witnessed the convoy’s arrival, said it took about an hour before UN staff allowed civilians to begin collecting flour bags.

The Israeli military had designated a specific route for the aid convoy, barring them from reaching humanitarian warehouse facilities and mandating what the head of Gaza’s Private Transport Association, Nahed Shehaiber, described as “self-distribution.” Shehaiber told Mada Masr that around 100 flour-loaded trucks entered Gaza on Saturday — half through the Karam Abu Salem crossing in the south and the other half via Zikim in the north.

One of the truck drivers told Mada Masr that the Israeli military instructed them not to deliver the aid to distribution warehouses and threatened to target any vehicle that deviated from the assigned route. Drivers were forced to stop at points set by the Israeli military, where aid was distributed directly to waiting civilians.

Looters opened fire on four of the trucks in an attempt to seize their cargo, Shehaiber added, bringing the total number of aid trucks obstructed by armed groups to over 140.

GHF aid centers still a death trap

In southern and central Gaza, thousands of civilians continue to head to Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution sites despite repeated Israeli fire, after the Israeli military’s late-May imposition of a new distribution mechanism eradicated all other viable means of accessing aid.

In the past few days, conflicting announcements by GHF about operating hours left many caught in a “trap,” several residents told Mada Masr. Israeli forces opened fire on aid seekers who had arrived at distribution centers in line with the published schedules, only to find them shut, they said.

Hassan Hashem* set out at dawn on Monday with a companion to the GHF distribution center in Wadi Gaza near Netsarim corridor ahead of  its scheduled opening. “Thousands of people were gathered near the designated path leading to the distribution point,” he told Mada Masr. “Most were lying on the ground as Israeli military vehicles intermittently opened fire in their direction.” 

The GHF had announced the night before that its Wadi Gaza center would open at 6 am, and when the hour came, the crowd heard an announcement that the gate had opened, Hashem said. “We moved immediately along the path, but quickly realized the center was still closed — then, suddenly, rounds of fire broke out in our direction.”

No one managed to collect aid parcels. Hashem later learned that the center had opened much earlier than the time announced.

Saed Hammouda, who arrived the night before to wait alongside thousands of others, said the gates opened at 2 am, but the amount of aid was extremely limited, “barely enough for 5 percent of the crowd,” he told Mada Masr.

Once the gates opened, chaos broke out. According to Hammouda, individuals armed with sticks and bladed weapons who stood at the front were the first to enter, taking sugar, oil, flour and rice from the parcels. Thousands of others were left with only canned food, and within 30 minutes, the Israeli military opened fire on the crowd, he said.

Further south, in western Rafah, Mohamed al-Najjar*, who went to collect aid on Sunday at the GHF site in the Saudi neighborhood, told Mada Masr that residents showed up at the announced time, but the site was closed. American personnel at the site instructed them to turn back before sealing the gates.

Although residents had followed the designated route to the center, Najjar said Israeli military vehicles stationed nearby suddenly opened fire on the crowd. Troops encircled groups of aid seekers and blocked their escape, with shots reaching tents housing displaced people in the coastal Mawasi region west of Rafah.

Israeli quadcopter drones hovering over the area also fired on the waiting crowds, Najjar said. Some carried the wounded and dead on their shoulders to a hospital operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross in southern Gaza.

GHF announced on Saturday that its Tel al-Sultan center in western Rafah would open at 10 am, followed two hours later by the Saudi neighborhood center. But by Sunday morning — just half an hour after the first center was supposed to open, and hours before the second — GHF declared both sites closed, citing the “completion of aid distribution.”

Ramy Badawy first went to the Tel al-Sultan distribution site, only to find it closed. He then headed to the center in Saudi, where American personnel stationed inside also informed him and other aid seekers that the day’s aid distribution had already ended. Badawy said thousands of residents had gathered outside but were denied any aid. He described the situation as a deliberate Israeli tactic to lure civilians into a deadly “aid trap.”

Israeli forces resumed their attacks on aid seekers outside other GHF centers across central and south Gaza throughout Monday.

At least 20 people were killed and 200 others wounded near a GHF distribution site in Rafah, medics told Reuters. “We went there thinking we would get aid to feed our children, but it turned out to be a trap, a killing. I advise everyone: don’t go there," Ahmed Fayad, who tried to reach the site, told Reuters.

The day before, three people were killed near the distribution point in the Netsarim corridor, while two more were killed near the Rafah center, according to the Palestinian News and Information Agency (Wafa).

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that the number of Palestinians killed or injured by Israeli fire while waiting for aid had risen to 274 dead and more than 2,536 wounded.

*Pseudonyms