Dozens go missing at Gaza’s GHF ‘aid traps,’ survivors of Israeli military abductions say

As he joined hundreds of others walking the long distance to an aid distribution point to get food, Omar Asfour knew that he might not return to his family, that the Israeli troops stationed around the area could fire at any moment.

Asfour was right: he didn’t make it home that day in late June. But it wasn’t injury or death from the near-daily shelling and artillery fire at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites, which have claimed over 1,000 lives, that stopped him. Nor was it the lethal crowding that has also claimed the lives of aid-seekers crushed and suffocated in the heat among thousands with no means to survive famine except through the Israeli-backed, US-based GHF “aid traps.”

Instead, Asfour was arrested. Israeli forces took him to an unknown detention facility, where he would be held for a month.

“I don't know why I was arrested,” he told Mada Masr. “I entered the aid center like thousands of others, but a few minutes later, I found a group of soldiers and a number of other young men surrounding me. They assaulted us before arresting us.”

According to the Dameer Association for Human Rights, Asfour, who was released without charge after a month in custody, is one of over 70 people who Israeli forces have arbitrarily arrested at GHF aid sites since the organization began its operations in the Gaza Strip in May.

The association has recorded 72 disappearances near aid distribution points and truck routes. Eighteen of the missing persons are confirmed to be in Israeli military custody, while the fate of the remaining 54 is unknown.

Eyewitnesses recounted how the arrests took place. At the end of July, Ahmed Abu Amsha made his way to a GHF center in Rafah to seek aid. Israeli soldiers were stationed near the distribution point in large numbers, intermittently opening fire on the crowds, he told Mada Masr.

 “As soon as the doors of the center opened, people rushed in. And once some crossed the main gate, several Israeli vehicles advanced toward the crowds," Abu Amsha said.

He was at the back of the crowd pouring into the enclosed aid center, but was still able to see the soldiers assault the detainees before arresting them. “The soldiers arrested a number of civilians on the spot and drove them away, we didn’t know where," he said.

Qusay al-Zaza was arrested along with several other young men in June outside the GHF aid distribution point in the Saudi neighborhood west of Rafah. He remembered Israeli forces blindfolding him and assaulting him with sticks and tasers. Asfour, too, remembered being blindfolded during his arrest alongside several other aid-seekers.

Asfour was taken to an unknown location where Israeli soldiers interrogated him for a week.

Neither he nor the others faced any charges. “They tortured me and my companions every day,” Asfour said. “Throughout the month in detention, they beat us every day, sprayed pepper spray in our eyes, played loud, irritating music so we couldn't sleep, and deprived us of food for days on end.”

Things were similar for Zaza, whose group was transferred from the Rafah GHF point to Sde Teiman, a detention camp notorious for holding detainees from the Gaza Strip in terrible conditions. 

On the way, Zaza and his group were assaulted “by various means,” he told Mada Masr. Zaza was detained for around a month, during which he was subjected to various forms of torture and deprived of food. No charges were brought against him either and he was ultimately released in mid-July.

Alaa al-Skafy, the director of Dameer, said accounts from released detainees attest consistently that the Israeli military subjects civilians in its custody to harsh and degrading conditions, including torture, repeated assault, and deprivation from medical care.

The number of missing persons arrested by the Occupation forces near aid distribution points and along aid truck routes is constantly rising, Skafy told Mada Masr.