Israel opens fire on aid seekers as Gaza Humanitarian Foundation assumes new aid distribution role

Thousands of Palestinians queued in the heat on Tuesday at an Israeli-controlled enclosure in Rafah, southern Gaza, hoping to pick up supplies they have been deprived of for nearly three months.

They were met with long waits, security checks, and what eventually escalated into a dangerous and chaotic scene as Israeli troops policing the perimeter arrested civilians seeking food and later opened fire at people attempting to rush toward the boxed goods, according to eyewitnesses who spoke to Mada Masr.

The Gaza Government Media Office described Israel’s new aid distribution system as an “absolute failure.”

The arrests and shootings in Rafah came as Israel rolled out a new aid distribution plan, seeking to replace the existing networks in the strip. Following an aid blockade that lasted over 80 days, depriving Palestinians of food and medical supplies and causing a spike in malnutrition-related deaths, Israel’s military slowly began to allow limited quantities of aid into the strip last week, launching its new collection system today for the first time in partnership with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a newly founded corporation designated by Israel to implement the operations.

Aid distribution in the strip was previously operated by humanitarian organizations and Palestinian companies and agencies based in Gaza. 

Israeli-administered aid distribution began Tuesday morning at a post established by the foundation in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. The area lies within the Morag corridor, a zone established by Israeli forces that invaded and occupied Rafah after breaking the ceasefire nearly three months ago, and which separates Rafah from neighboring Khan Younis. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Palestinian Gaza resident who received aid at the post today told Mada Masr that they were one of hundreds who had traveled south from coastal Mawasi’s displacement tents to the Morag corridor. 

Footage of the distribution zone showed thousands of Palestinians packed in narrow queues separated and enclosed by wire mesh barriers and gates in the otherwise bulldozed area.

There, the source said, they passed through an electronic gate equipped with cameras. Another aid seeker said that people were ordered to stand in front of security cameras to be checked, which meant that the distribution process was moving very slowly. 

After crossing the checkpoint, the first source said they received a box of supplies and left the area. A third person confirmed receiving aid in the same way.

The aid box contained bags of rice, lentils, pasta, canned food and biscuits, enough to feed a family of five-seven people for a week, according to several of the recipients who spoke to Mada Masr on Tuesday. 

But the security checks soon became more invasive. Gaza resident Mohamed Moussa, who was there to collect supplies, was asked to provide information about a relative during security checks, a neighbor of the Moussa family told Mada Masr. Moussa reportedly told the Israeli intelligence officer that the family had lost contact with said relative at the beginning of the war.

The family received a call from Moussa via an Israeli officer’s phone asking for information about the wanted relative. The officer then informed them that Moussa had been arrested and transferred to a detention center, before they ultimately lost contact with him.

Moussa wasn’t the only one. Other recipients confirmed witnessing the Israeli military units stationed near the distribution points arresting displaced people who had come to collect their rations. The second source said they saw around 13 people being asked, following the security check, to approach one of the nearby Israeli military posts, where they were arrested in full view of the queued aid seekers.

According to the same aid seeker, things soon got out of control at the distribution zone. Anger erupted among the crowds, who had waited for hours in the sun, culminating in thousands of aid seekers breaking through the barriers and collecting the aid boxes themselves. 

The Israeli military responded by opening fire on aid seekers, wounding several. Footage showed crowds dispersing in all directions as the rapid gunfire rang out. 

The aid distribution process was halted at that point, the second source said. The Israeli media reported that aid seekers had taken everything they could find in the zone, including equipment, tables, chairs and cables. 

Describing today’s events as a “complete failure,” the Gaza Government Media Office issued a statement on Tuesday evening condemning the “tragic and painful scene” caused by the Israeli aid distribution scheme. It added that the scene clearly reflects “the complete collapse of the humanitarian process claimed by the Occupation.”

GHF only stated that it had distributed 8,000 aid boxes and would resume aid distribution normally tomorrow “despite today’s events.” The statement added that GHF personnel withdrew from the area according to pre-determined safety protocols to prevent injury, but that “control over the area was subsequently restored.”

GHF is registered in the United States and Switzerland and is reportedly backed by both the US and Israel. It has been described as lacking the independence necessary for humanitarian work, both by international humanitarian agencies who have rejected the new aid system, and by GHF’s former director, who resigned on Monday night just hours before aid distribution was set to begin. 

The distribution also took place in the Morag corridor, a military zone, to which access is policed by Israeli military forces. The Morag corridor comprises large areas of empty lands that Israeli forces have bulldozed through and occupied since April to control the road linking Rafah to Khan Younis.

Marwan Muheisan, the deputy head of Gaza’s Chamber of Commerce, told Mada Masr that the new aid distribution plan is nothing more than a ploy to facilitate the displacement of the strip’s population from northern areas to the distribution zones in the south. 

Entities, which Muheisan declined to name, attempted to establish contact with Gaza’s Chamber of Commerce, asking them to cooperate with GHF. The chamber refused, he said, saying the foundation was a politicized entity pursuing Israeli objectives and weaponizing food “as a tool to pressure the Palestinian people.”

UN-affiliated organizations echoed similar concerns, issuing a joint statement, when Israel first proposed the plan, describing aid distribution in the Israeli-enclosed area as “bait” to draw already displaced people into high-risk areas. 

Former GHF director Jake Wood also said the foundation was unable to adhere to “humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, which I will not abandon.” Wood, a former US Marine, has been the foundation’s head for the past two months. 

Urging citizens not to engage with the Israeli scheme in a statement on Monday, the Gaza Government stressed that the plan, which bypasses UN institutions, aims to "replace order with chaos, adopt a policy of engineering the starvation of Palestinian civilians, and use food as a weapon in times of war."

The Government Media Office also highlighted the foundation’s complicity with Israel in its Monday statement, saying GHF was funded by Israel and that it will use "aid distribution within a security and intelligence framework,” in order to collect data through iris scanning. The “malicious objectives” of the operations, the media office said, are ultimately to further the mass displacement of Palestinians from their homes.

When it began to establish an isolated zone in the Palestinian city of Rafah, Israel had announced that a new plan for aid distribution  — that would purportedly prevent Hamas members from accessing supplies — would be implemented in the area.

The plan includes four distribution centers, three in southern Gaza and one in central Gaza, with GHF stating earlier this week that the distribution process would be guarded by private security firms and that aid is meant to reach 1 million Palestinians by the end of the week. 

 A Western diplomat told Mada Masr in April that the new zone is intended to be used by the UN and other organizations, in coordination with an American company, as a base to manage aid.

Since early March, Israel has halted the entry of all goods and supplies into the strip, imposing a blockade on civilians who have been suffering from a severe shortage of food, water, fuel and medical supplies.

The siege was interrupted over the past few days when small quantities of food were allowed into the besieged strip for the first time in over 80 days, with some reaching warehouses in southern and central Gaza on Thursday and a few other trucks reaching Gaza City on Sunday. 

Though the head of the Private Transport Association told Mada Masr earlier this week that 300 trucks had been allowed through the Karam Abu Salem crossing, aid agencies have pointed out that the supplies permitted into the strip will do little to mitigate the dire need among people suffering amid nearly three months of uninterrupted war and blockade. 

Before Israel’s aggression on Gaza, around 500 trucks entered the coastal enclave daily.